Words
by grieverwings
Summary: Complete: "Wisdom is not in words; Wisdom is meaning within words" -Kahlil Gibran; A self-imposed challenge revolving around words; Chapter 15: "In which Rorschach says goodbye."
1. Magic

Magic

_"Any extraordinary or mystical influence, charm, power, etc."_

"It's like they're drawn to me," Dan complained, rubbing the bridge of his nose. "Instead of actually fighting _crime_, I end up spending the night fending off some lunatic desperate for 'punishment'." Rorschach made a noise, noncommittal and probably not even paying attention. He decided to leave it at that, setting his beer on the floor by his feet.

"That Carnage bothering you again?" Dan sat up straight, making a face and staring at his partner's back.

"You were listening?"

"I always listen, Daniel." He shrugged. It was hard to tell sometimes, especially with that mask. For all Dan knew, Rorschach could be sitting there pulling faces. "Is Carnage bothering you again?" Dan stood up and meandered away, slightly embarrassed by the whole thing. He wasn't used to that side of the underworld, the people who weren't violent or abominations but simply insane. Imagine being desperate enough to get off that you would willingly dress up like a freak and follow vigilantes around.

Then again, Carnage wasn't the only one running around with his underwear on the outside of his pants. It was somewhat hypocritical to assume that it took some kind of mental deficiency to be someone like them… or was it?

"Yeah. It's just… obnoxious, you know? I mean, I could handle it if he was just some weirdo, but…" He extended his hands in a show of helplessness. "He's _everywhere_. I can't seem to get rid of him." Rorschach grunted again, and Dan could almost see the wheels in his head turning. He flushed – of all the people he had to complain to, he chose the one that would immediately assume he was too wimpy to fix the problem. Great. "Look, man, you don't have to worry about it. I just needed…"

"Not worrying. Simply curious. Is that a crime?" Now, Dan sighed, _now_ he had reason to be concerned. That innocent lilt in his voice is enough to tip him off – Rorschach was definitely going to try something, and that was more than humiliating enough.

"He'll go away, if I ignore him long enough," he said. "You don't have to intervene. I'll be all right." Rorschach came to stand beside him, and he got the impression that he was being scrutinized closely. He could feel the flush creeping onto his face again, and behind his goggles, he shut his eyes and willed the red to stay away with all his might. There were some days he just hated Rorschach's complete disregard for others' personal space. After a long, awkward moment, his partner turned away and recovered his fedora, planting it firmly on his head.

"Should go. Dawn will come soon – good work tonight."

"Yeah. Uh…" Dan faltered briefly. "You need a place to crash? The couch is always open." Instead of his typical response, one of derision, Rorschach simply jams his hands in his pockets.

"Thank you. I'm fine." Then he's gone, disappeared into the early morning, and Dan waited a moment or two before removing his goggles and rubbing his nose again.

The next night, Rorschach never showed up for patrol. Dan ended up taking Archie out on his own, spending the night lazily scanning the city and occasionally breaking up a minor mugging. At about midnight, he parked the ship on top of a building and relaxed, seeing no point in floating around aimlessly if the city had decided to be quiet. Perhaps it knew he was alone tonight, he thought almost fondly, and had decided to give him a break.

Sometimes, he thought, leaning back in the pilot's seat, Rorschach wouldn't show up for days at a time, and then reappear without fanfare and refusing to respond to any questions. This wasn't odd at all, and yet, something about his polite questions earlier was still nagging at him. Besides, he hadn't seen Captain Carnage all night – a rare occurrence in itself. On a regular patrol, he'd already have shown up five times by now.

A tap on Archie's hull grabbed Dan's attention, sending a little stutter through his heart. Through the metal framework, he heard a dull, unintelligible muttering, and smiled in relief. With the press of a few buttons, the door whirred open and Rorschach stepped through, looking unusually clean and composed.

"Hello, Daniel."

"Uh… hey. You… never showed up tonight, so I figured..."

"My apologies. Had some business to take care of." Dan eyed him as he moved about the ship, searching for anything suspicious. There were levels of privacy between them, never asked too much about the other's life outside costumes and gadgets and masks, but he couldn't help it. There was just something funny about the whole thing. "Ran into Carnage on street," Rorschach said, sounding impossibly casual and even somewhat cheerful.

"You _what_?"

"Won't have to worry about him. He's gone." Oh, no – Dan should have seen something like this coming. "I see what you meant – his pleas are severely annoying."

"Oh, man, what did you do?"

"Nothing." There was something in the way Rorschach refused to even look his way – by now, at least, he knew his partner was terrible at lying.

"So you expect me to believe that he magically disappeared off the face of the earth?" Dan asked, a little more biting than he intended it. Rorschach shrugged, keeping his gaze averted. The silence lasted for a few seconds, and then Dan hung his head with a heavy sigh. "Seriously, man, what happened? He pulled the whole 'punish me' thing on you too, didn't he?" His partner nodded this time, willing to divulge this bit of information. Having realized that Dan wasn't anywhere near as gullible as most thought, he leaned back in the seat and drummed his fingers on the chair's arm.

"Tried to ignore him, as you said, but he wouldn't leave. I assisted his departure. Dropped him down an elevator shaft."

Dan didn't know whether to be amused or angry or upset, but for a second the swirling shapes on Rorschach's mask reminded him heavily of a self-satisfied smirk, so he put his head in his hand and howled with laughter.

**AN: I wholeheartedly love the whole Captain Carnage thing. I think it's perfectly hilarious, even though some shred of my human decency wishes otherwise. I don't know the specifics of it (does anyone?) so I assumed that this doesn't mess with what actually happened. I also love the idea of Rorschach being protective over Daniel, at least at the beginning, before he could take care of himself.**

**On another note, this is somewhat based off the whole "10 Songs" challenge, except instead I randomly picked 15 words and am using those instead. I expect it to be entertaining, if somewhat difficult, and I'll update as I go along. Most of these, I think, will be focused around Nite Owl II and Rorschach because they're**** my favorites (like everyone else). I hope they're enjoyed.**


	2. Hunt

Hunt

"_To search for; seek; endeavor to obtain or find."_

It seemed to smell worse every time they came down here. Dan could get used to his partner's brash style, his inability to communicate anything other than short sentences, even his strange fondness for breaking into his house and taking his food – but nothing could ever properly explain to him why on earth Rorschach liked the sewers so much. _Quickest mode of transportation_, he always said, _easiest way to get around the city_, and completely ignored his complaints about the odor. To be perfectly honest, he thought guiltily, Rorschach didn't smell so great himself… perhaps the sewer's noxious fumes simply didn't bother him so much.

Stepping over a dead something-or-other, Dan couldn't help but plug his nose through his mask. If this didn't bother Rorschach, the man had no sense of smell whatsoever. Besides, how were they supposed to find anyone down here? Dan had barely glanced at Rorschach's detailed map of the city's underbelly, and his head reeled for at least a minute. It was almost funny that for as many years as he'd lived in New York, he never once thought of the sprawling labyrinth beneath his feet at every moment. Leave it to his partner to think of this as a primeval subway system… minus the trains, commodities, and modest amounts of hygiene.

"You really think we'll find Typhoon down here?" he asked, trying his best to keep the whine out of his voice. It didn't seem to have worked, as Rorschach snorted and shook his head slightly.

"Look at the name. Obviously water-based, sewers best place to check first." Dan cursed Rorschach's logic and the strange kink in super villains that led them to pick inconvenient "lairs" and hidey-holes. "Besides, asked around. People kidnapped left trails here and there. All trails led to manholes."

"But… look, man, the likelihood that we'll find anyone in this place is slim to none." As he spoke, Rorschach slowly turned on his heel to face him, making Dan a little uneasy. His partner had been… off, for a very long time. More off than usual, anyway, as opposed to his typical oddness – quicker to spring, less forgiving to the criminals that lurked in the streets… _dangerous_. Even to him, his partner and perhaps his friend – and it concerned Dan, troubled him deeply, but he couldn't bring himself to ask questions. "May- maybe," he stuttered, "we could try gathering some more information first."

Rorschach's deathly silence was unbearable, and for once, the blots on his mask were barely moving. When he did speak, it was in a throaty rasp – more emotional than Dan thought he could ever sound. "Kidnapped children. Can't give up so easily."

Something about his tone struck Dan, delved into his chest and pierced his heart with a skewer. Swallowing, he nodded – how could he deny Rorschach something so important? From their positions on his forehead and cheeks, the blots on his mask poured down like water to his chin… and his partner turned away, stalking through the sewer with increased determination.

They walked for about twenty minutes, frequently consulting Rorschach's mess of a map and hunting the walls desperately for clues. Not another word was exchanged, and Dan used his time to consider what might have changed. No, he wouldn't call them friends – perhaps a few months ago, but not now, never now. This wasn't the man that greeted him with a friendly, "Hello, Daniel," accepted his offer to sleep on his couch every now and again, or added silly things like sugar cubes and beans to his shopping list. This Rorschach was a stranger, a completely different inkblot card held up for him to examine and rationalize what he saw, and what he saw was not natural. What he saw was a monster.

His partner threw out a hand and caught his arm, stopping him and his thoughts dead. "Heard something."

They waited. Dan held his breath, wondering at the way Rorschach gripped him with fingers like vises. He was nothing if not resolute, able to take care of himself, but there was a neediness and fear in his hold – hoping he had heard nothing and yet knowing he had. A thin, trembling, weeping noise wavered through the passage, reverberating off the muck on the floor and walls to barely reach Dan's ears. He tensed, terrified, and Rorschach felt it. Dropping his arm, he charged ahead, grumbling awfully, "No, no, no, _no_." Dan followed, almost running into his back as they emerged into a larger chamber.

Typhoon, clad in teal and green and glittering scales, lay half-covered by filth and waste. Around him, the waters were a murky brown, colored with the crimson that covered the parts of his body that hadn't been drenched. Acting swiftly, Dan pushed past Rorschach and dropped to his knees beside Typhoon, feeling for a pulse and checking his vitals. All in vain.

"He's dead," he said, as though Rorschach hadn't already guessed, and looked up to see a boy. Eyes wide, cowering in the corner, a bloodied knife in his hands and tears streaming down his face. When Dan looked at him, he dropped the knife quickly, letting it sink into the thigh-deep sewage. He left it there.

"He- he- he came at me first," the boy whimpered, pressing against the wall. "I didn't mean to." He would be cute, Dan thought sadly, without the grime and the horrible ache in his eyes. Has to be about seven or eight, too young to handle something like this. A quick glance at Rorschach told him that he would be the one to deal with this situation – his partner seemed to have frozen solid. Maybe he didn't expect to find anyone alive.

Guiltily, Dan edged away from Typhoon but stayed on his knees, refusing to break eye contact with the little boy. "It's okay. We're… we're your friends. We came to find you." The boy's eyes lit up briefly, and it broke Dan's heart to see that so small a reassurance could rekindle hope in him. He was too young to think that everyone was scum, everyone was out to hurt him – he would trust and trust until the moment he was betrayed, often a moment too late. "What's your name?" he asked, holding out his hand. The boy sniffled, composed himself long enough to utter one word.

"Walter."

Rorschach tensed again, making an involuntary noise. Dan turned to him, wondering briefly at his reaction, but returned his attention to the boy as a small body collided with his. Quiet weeping shook them both, and in an instant, Dan scooped him up and held him close. He almost felt like crying, too, weeping in relief and joy and mourning for all the worldly men and women killed while a naïve child survived.

His partner cleared his throat, that strange throbbing and harshness returned. "Find out what happened," he said, inkblots racing furiously up and down his face. "Other survivors. Ask. Interrogate."

For once, Dan found he had to disagree with him. Holding Walter close, carefully swaying him back and forth, he walked past Rorschach and towards the way they came. "He won't be able to answer any questions now. He's only a boy, Rorschach; you can't threaten him like gangs and thieves." Dan watched Rorschach tilt his head, gazing somewhere in the boy's direction. One of his hands reached up unsteadily, stretching to touch Walter's mop of unkempt brown hair, but dropped it just as quickly.

"Wasn't planning on it."

Dan carried him all the way out, heart aching when he realized that the shuddering had stopped and Walter lay fast asleep. Once or twice, when it became a little difficult to maneuver with a kid in his arms, he would let Rorschach go ahead and hand the boy over, but his partner never kept him. The instant Dan made it up the ladder, or through the narrow space, Rorschach would hold the kid out like one would a dirty diaper and look at him expectantly. Walter never woke up, contented by soothing dreams and his savior's sturdy arms and shoulder and the knowledge that his nightmare was over. When they emerged again, dawn was coming, and New York's sky was dressed in shades of pinks and purples and oranges. Rorschach immediately insisted that they drop Walter off at a police station, as they had no hope of locating his parents or finding where he lived, and Dan found that he had to agree. When they walked in a police station, toting the latest hardened criminal effectively subdued and typically comatose, Dan was used to looks of disdain and fear. He knew about the encroaching Keane Act – he wasn't stupid. He knew that the cops all thought masked vigilantes were taking their jobs, reducing and eliminating their effectiveness. This time, gently holding Walter and smelling awfully of sewage, they were treated as heroes. A few braver police officers clapped him on the back, saying that his parents had looked for him desperately for over three days. With a promise that Walter would be safely returned, and without a goodbye, Dan and Rorschach were bustled into the street again and left to stare at each other uncomfortably.

"Uh… boy," Dan said, unsure of what to say. "We really reek." Rorschach nodded crisply, looking down at his stained costume and grunting.

"Should go home. Wash suit. Rest." Before his partner could slip away, Dan grabbed his arm and held him there. Before, Rorschach would hardly have minded, but today he was almost positive that Rorschach was three seconds from beating his head against the police station wall.

"Come with me. I can put everything in the laundry for you, give you something clean to sleep in…" Already, he knew the answer was no. Still, he tried again, hoping that Rorschach could see that he was _worried_, worried sick and hopeless and wondering. "I- I could go out and get you those sugar cubes. Sweet Chariot, right?"

Gently, he disentangled himself and straightened his overcoat. "No, Daniel." Dan knew it was pointless before he even asked, but somehow, it hurt him even more that his partner couldn't even be brusque about it. Couldn't huffily declare no, and then slowly let himself be wheedled into it. This time, without another word, Rorschach disappeared into an alley, leaving the Nite Owl to flee from the morning and slowly trudge his way home. All he could think about was that face, _that mask_, frozen in what must have been anger, and then turning into streaming tears. He missed nights spent comfortably in Archie, having broken and enjoyable conversations. He missed waking up in the afternoon after a long night's work and coming downstairs to find Rorschach sitting at his kitchen table, devouring his food. He missed that endearing determination, his repressed beliefs that in the end, evil would be punished and justice would serve.

He shouldn't have bothered trying to look for his friend inside this new Rorschach, he thought as he flicked on his basement's light, illuminating Archie eerily. Peeling off his suit, Dan threw his goggles across the room and scrubbed furiously at the resolute tears carefully trickling out. Though he wished otherwise, a large part of him was sure that the Walter inside Rorschach had died.

**AN: This was a lot longer than I originally expected it would be. I also meant it to be lighthearted, at least somewhat, and then I had an idea and ran with it. Poor Rorschach. This takes place sometime after the Roche incident, probably a month or two. I never thought that Dan would accept his friend's change quite submissively, and cling to the last pieces of humanity Rorschach had until they slipped away. Obviously, at least a bit of his affection towards Dan and his humanity survived, but it must have been a hard transition for Dan.**

**Also used for playing with Rorschach's facial expressions, Dan's take on their strange relationship, Momma-Daniel (which I know everybody secretly loves), and both of their personalities. Experiment a relative success, I think I can say.**


	3. Design

Design

"_To plan and fashion artistically or skillfully."_

"What are these?" Rorschach asked, holding up a few sheets of paper. Dan looked up, wiping some sweat from his brow. He hated cleaning out his basement, but every few months, it was a necessary thing. He had the awful tendency to hoard things, regardless of their value or age. It was lucky enough that Rorschach had agreed to lend a helping hand, albeit a minor one. Any help, he had assured his partner, was appreciated.

Dan moved closer, taking the papers and studying them closely. "I don't know, man. Don't remember these…" Suddenly, it clicked. Rorschach tilted his head slightly, and he chuckled as he handed them back. "They're blueprints. My first designs for Archie." Oh, he remembered them well – he had only needed to glance before he could remember every little detail. Originally, his metal friend was to have a rectangular shape, sort of like a floating box. He had even drawn out a floor plan, complete with a private bathroom, single-person cockpit with a lot of fancier gadgets, and even video cameras rigged to the hull. Couldn't remember why he'd thought of those.

Rorschach inspected the plans, snorting slightly as he examined one of the… sillier ideas. "Ridiculous," he grumbled, setting a page aside. "Didn't have much of an imagination at the time. Or too much of one." Dan shrugged, grinned sheepishly.

"I didn't have you around, I suppose." The light, friendly sarcasm was lost somewhere between Dan's mouth and Rorschach's mask, so Dan contented himself with shifting boxes around the basement so he could feel like he was doing something productive. "I started planning him long before I even dreamed of being Nite Owl… I've always wanted to fly." His partner grunted.

"Buy plane ticket. That's the sensible way to fly."

"I thought you didn't trust planes. Besides, you like Archie, don't you?" Rorschach was silent for a moment, and Dan wondered if he ever got airsick. Maybe it wasn't about distrusting flying at all; maybe it was just that he got a little nauseous at high altitudes. He never had before, of course, but he couldn't really expect Rorschach to turn to him and say, "Feeling a little ill. Go down a bit, would you?" Which made the whole bathroom thing sound like a good idea all over again. Having your own private toilet in your own private airship made a lot of sense, especially since bathroom breaks in convenience stores and other locations happened to be incredibly awkward. He would never forget the night he regretted _so_ terribly drinking that much water in so little time, and had to stop in an alley to relieve himself. Rorschach, he thought somewhat fondly, had been absolutely disgusted and did not bother to show up at his house for at least two days.

Good times.

"Like Archie fine." Rorschach's gruff voice effectively sliced through Dan's thoughts, the words making him swell a bit with pride. Even a little bit of praise was enough. "Just saying – you've always had your head in the clouds. It's where you belong."

"Um… thanks?" Rorschach grunted, shuffling through the other blueprints briefly and setting them down with the rest. Dan saw his "gaze" flicker between the designs and the garbage pile, and held out his hand quickly. "You… you can put those back in their box. I'd like to keep them." If he didn't know his partner better, Dan would have said that he saw his mouth quirk up a bit beneath the mask. It might have been his imagination, but Rorschach's voice was riddled with sarcasm.

"Planning another? Feathered design worth another look." He shuddered – what an abomination that had been. Honestly, an owl-shaped ship, wings and all? Complete with real down and everything? How stupid could one man get? Besides, where would he ever have gotten all the feathers? How would they stay _on_?

"No, one Archie is enough to handle." Rorschach nodded, laying the designs back where he had found them and turning to the ship. He stared for a while, as though inspecting it, and after a moment, he made a gruff humming noise. One of approval?

"Like Archie fine," he repeated, and went back to rummaging through boxes. Dan squirmed for a moment, unused to all this… appreciation. God, Rorschach must have been in a good mood – in the years they had worked together, he had never been anywhere near this cheerful. "Changed many elements of original outlines," he said a little tentatively, burrowing as far into the jumbled mess as he could. Dan set down a box of failed gadgets he hadn't the heart to get rid of. With Rorschach's help, he was sure such sentiments would not stop him this time.

"A lot of them were impractical." There was a pause. Neither of them touched a single object, frozen in time, until his partner cleared his throat slightly.

"…Equipped for one man." Dan chuckled, grinned, but both died when Rorschach looked up at him as if he'd kicked a kitten. He always seemed to think that even the littlest expression of humor was directed at him, mocking cruelly. There was no way to take that laughter back, so he rubbed a hand through his hair and sighed.

"Yeah, that was one of the impractical ones. At the time, I assumed I would be the only one who wanted to soar above the city, free as a bird. That was before –" he almost said, "before we were partners," but quickly recovered with a light cough. "That was before Nite Owl." Rorschach nodded, understood, and Dan wondered if there was a 'before Rorschach' – but that was silly, absurd, because this man was nothing but Rorschach. He couldn't deny his curiosity, but that was not a subject to be breached; especially not now, when they were so comfortable in something as ordinary as cleaning out a basement. Suddenly dissatisfied with the situation, Dan kicked the gadget box back under a table.

"You're keeping that?" Rorschach asked.

"Nope. I think I'm done for now. I'll take everything out to the dump later, but right now…" His stomach grumbled, and he latched upon the idea. "Let's eat something. I've got plenty." Rorschach's mask puffed out a bit around where lips would be, and Dan wondered if he was sighing.

"Should be going home."

"Aw, come on. We'll eat, and you can take the guest bedroom. It's the least I can do, since you helped me out." He clasped Rorschach's shoulder, squeezing hard enough to relay that he would not take no for an answer. His partner seemed to struggle briefly, so close to saying no, but under his hand, Dan felt him practically wilt in defeat.

"Couch is fine. Beans are fine, also, or eggs. Don't need much." Dan smiled and let go, cheerfully leading the way up his stairs.

"I've got beans."

**AN: I wish they were this good of friends the whole time. Figured we needed a break from morose blabbity-blah and threw in a bit of friendly banter. I really can't imagine Rorschach doing something so trivial as cleaning out someone's basement, but hey, it's Dan. If he tried hard enough, I'm pretty sure Dan could wheedle him into almost anything. I also like the idea of Dan leaving old Archie sketches lying around. I would totally go out into New York City to fight crime in a giant, feathery bird box. Yep. Totally.**

**One other chapter is complete, but I'm reviewing it to see if there's anything I might fix first. I'm not sure if I like how it turned out. It will probably be up by Sunday, at the latest.**


	4. Repeating

Repeating

"_To recite from memory."_

He remembers the street – walks along it, unable to control his feet. The brown fence looms ahead, and he knows where he is – when this is. He waits to hear the snarl of dogs, feel the cold chill creeping up his spine and settling at the back of his neck. They never come – puzzling, but the door sits there, and without thought and even motion (for hasn't he done this many times before?), he kicks it open. Goes through the motions: looks in cabinets and cupboards for murder weapons, waiting for his feet to carry him into the small room tucked away out of sight. He has had this dream many times now, many repeats of the terrible (_beautiful) _night when Blaire Roche was lost and Rorschach was born.

This dream, he thinks wearily, is different. Out the window, the German shepherds that so frequently haunt his dreams are not fighting over a bone, but sleeping peacefully in a heap. He scans the yard for a discarded femur, a misplaced finger, anything… but there is nothing to find. Confused, he forces himself to move, dragging himself into the little room with the little stove, almost desperately wishing to find the little scrap of fabric inside.

It isn't there. Instead, in the corner, there is a little girl. She is trembling, six years old, trembling like a leaf in teddy bear-printed pajamas. Blue eyes wet with tears widen, aghast at what this new torture might be. Briefly, lost in unknown territory and inexperienced dreams, Rorschach falters and Walter wishes Daniel were there to handle the child – _the girl_ – for him.

Her unabashed fear, however, puts words into his mouth. "Don't cry," he rasps, the sentiment sounding foreign and odd. "I'm taking you home."

He wishes he could stay, find the scum that kidnapped her (his name? what was his name?), serve him the justice he deserves, but all thoughts of fire and saws and dogs and hatred slide away when Blaire Roche gets to her feet unsteadily and reaches for him. He slides her little arms around his neck, amazed at her softness, wondering at how she holds to him like a life preserver. Innocence still clings to her like a perfume, buried beneath grime and fear and _man_, but there. Holding her tight, he slowly moves out of the house, swearing he will come back later, keeping the girl pressed close to his chest that she might never be stolen again.

There is no one on the street. He can only briefly find this odd, let his mind fill with conspiracies and questionable circumstances, and then he is grateful. No criminal would ever take Rorschach seriously after something like this… On the other hand, perhaps they would. There was something triumphant in this, carrying the Holy Grail out from its hiding place and displaying it for the world to see on the way to its next safe place. If someone does see him, no nuisance is made, and he wanders in a daze. Blaire is drifting to sleep against him, pressed against jutting collarbone and bony shoulder padded down by layers of clothing.

Before he realizes it, he has wandered into Daniel's basement. It is hard to guess if this makes him lucky or not, but the light is on and Daniel is curled up under Archie making a lot of noise. His partner slides out from under the bird smudged with oil. "Hey, Rorschach," he begins, waving his hand in greeting… and his mouth opens wide, hands falling limp and useless to his sides. "…What?"

For a moment, Rorschach does not know how to explain it. How could he explain how what was originally a dream now seemed to be horrifically real? Unpredictable? He shifts Blaire a bit, hoisting her back up onto his hip, and sighs. "Blaire Roche," he whispers, and she stirs against him. "Found her… saved her." There is something ludicrous in that statement to both of them, and there is a biting moment when Rorschach realizes that Daniel never thought he would save the girl at all. As though still unable to believe it, he draws close, uncomfortably close, and reaches out to brush dark hair from her eyes. Walter almost pulls her away, never wanting another man to touch her again, but then he remembers that this is Daniel. Not a man, a Jew, a liberal, or anything else – Daniel. He lets him gently stroke her, smoothing her hair back into place. An achy sort of pride worms its way down through his throat and into his heart.

"I didn't think you'd find her," he whispers reverently. "I thought for sure she was dead." But she's not, Rorschach thinks, and that's the best part of all. She's alive and breathing, whispering against his chest, holding fast to his neck, and when Daniel reaches for her, he takes a step back and does his best to eye him through the mask. It's hard to get his point across, but his partner gets it and turns away, cheeks a little red. "We need to take her home," he sighs, running a hand through his hair.

"Three in the morning." He gestures to a clock on the wall with a finger. "Decent people are asleep at three in the morning."

"Don't you think her parents will want her back right away?" Blaire stirs again, lifting her face from his body and biting her lip. Her little fists clench his trench coat tighter, and she threatens to sob.

"I want my mommy," she whimpers, and it's all Walter can do not to squeeze her until she explodes, wishing desperately that he could take her, hide her, and never let the world hurt her again. Quickly, Daniel bends down before her, face pinched in earnest.

"You'll see your mom soon, sweetheart," he says, and Rorschach's pulse dances a quick little jig. He is reminded of a life, so long ago, when his mother said things like that – when his mother loved him. Daniel would make a good mother. He almost smiles at that, but stops – weak, weak, _weak_, and the part of him that still knows the little Roche girl was cleaved apart and fed to animals hates him for it. "Are you hungry?" She nods, and he can feel her stomach tumbling, wonders if the scum ever even thought about feeding her. Daniel looks at him as though he expects him to set the girl down. He doesn't.

"Lead the way."

Time hiccups, as time is wont to do in dreams (is this still a dream?), and he is sitting at the table across from chubby, swinging legs. Little Blaire watches him as she slowly eats the sandwich Daniel made her. He watches back, simultaneously searching for evidence of physical abuse and repressing amazement. It felt strange, setting her down after holding her for so long, and he is amazed to feel such a weird sense of loss. Daniel drops a can of beans in front of him. He eyes it, watching the steam rise from the food, and decides to ignore it – doesn't taste the same, hot. Still, moving his gaze back to Blaire, he nods in thanks. Daniel sits next to her, but at her uncomfortable glance, he scoots away compliantly.

"Doesn't seem that taken with you," he mumbles, willing his lip to keep from quirking. Daniel does smile again, shrugging his shoulders.

"I'm a man," he says simply. Rorschach ponders that, wondering the little girl only attached to him because of his ambiguity. To Blaire, Daniel is of the same species that took her away, kept her locked in a little room and terrorized her daily. He, on the other hand, is not a man – simply a creature emerged from the dark to perform search-and-rescue. If he were Walter, ugly, freckled, and red, would she have come so compliantly?

Blaire drops her sandwich and looks up at his swirling mask. She refuses to speak to Daniel, which he honestly finds amusing, despite his partner's obvious disappointment. "Can I go home now?" Daniel looks at him wearily, unable to make an excuse. Uncomfortable. He clears his throat, weighing his words carefully –how does he explain the situation so that she understands?

Simple. He lies.

"Yes. However, your parents are coming here. We will have to wait." Ignoring his partner's shocked expression, he watches the little girl hop down from her chair and walk over to him… take his hand. He is embarrassed – his old, bloodstained gloves aren't fit for her angelic, stubby fingers, but her smile chips at his heart.

"Okay."

They sit on the couch, Blaire between Rorschach and Daniel, snuggled into his side. He is uncomfortable, so close to the both of them, but he can't move. Daniel sighs, pets the girl's head, and his fingers barely graze Rorschach's coat. He pulls away briefly, moving back enough that he gets the hint.

"I'm proud of you," Daniel says, and it's surprising to both of them. Rorschach doesn't _need_ pride, doesn't need his ego stroked, but Walter trembles slightly at such praise. Daniel doesn't lie. He means it. "You saved her life. She probably would have died, if you hadn't shown up." He leans closer, conspiratorially, and Rorschach can't bring himself to move again. "You know what, man? She might tell her kids this, someday. You'll be a hero to her, forever."

Kids. _Kids. __**What kids?**_

The illusion shatters.

Daniel continues to speak, but it echoes as though from miles away, and Blaire goes cold against his body. The warm comfort of the house is ripped away, leaving Rorschach and Blaire and Daniel and Walter, _Walter_, screaming in torment as the little girl falls to the floor and breaks into a million pieces. Dogs chew on her remains, gnashing horrible teeth, and all he can smell is ash, blood, and death. Walter disappears, eliminated again, and he remembers. He remembers the way his hand reverberated when he struck the first dog down, the warm spatter of blood on his chest. Remembers looking down at Grice (Grice, _Grice_), covered in his dogs' blood and whimpering pathetically for his life. Remembers watching the house burn down, a fitting fate for someone who would burn a child. Blackened breasts, singed bellies, flesh scalded and fading, fading, fading away…

Daniel is still there, watches him, and when their eyes meet, he shakes his head and walks away. Disappointment. Knew he wouldn't find her… never wanted to dash his hopes by saying so. When he has stood, watching the flames an hour, he turns around and walks to his apartment. Not to Daniel. Not when all Daniel will offer is stammered misgivings and questions.

Walter is gone, swallowed up by the ink on his mask, fallen into the abyss, and he is _dead_. Only Rorschach remains.

Only Rorschach survives that night.

**AN: This chapter is different, I know, and I planned a different ending, but… I like it. It has a sort of charm, for me. Besides, I haven't really seen any stories playing on what might have happened if Rorschach found Blaire. This is, however, supposed to be within the actual book's continuity, so I couldn't really say "oh, look, there goes little living Blaire skipping down the street!" without causing a few problems. Hence, his dream. Rorschach (if not Walter) strikes me as the kind of person who has nightmares, regardless of how strong and fearless he might be… everyone has nightmares, sometimes, and Rorschach's got enough bottled up that his nightmares must be horrendous.**

**I also don't think Walter really 'died' (the end of the book is proof enough), but that's an entirely different matter.**


	5. Private

Private

"_Intended only for the persons immediately concerned; confidential."_

Dawn trickled through his curtains, waking Dan prematurely by throwing shards of light onto his face. He tried to swat them away, grumbling as they forced his eyes open anyway. Rolling to his side, he glared blearily at the clock – he had been asleep less than an hour, and now he was completely awake. "Christ," he murmured, and rolled out of bed. Last night's patrol had been tough: his knees cracked, his back ached, and a few still-tender bruises throbbed at the sudden abuse. Bandages and healing scratches covered almost all the skin laid bare beyond cotton pajamas. In short, he was _tired_, physically and mentally exhausted, and it was today that he had to be unable to sleep. The universe had a funny way of operating sometimes.

He pushed on his glasses, not bothering to wipe them off beforehand, and peered through smudges as he carefully moved into the hall. The least he could do was have a drink of water, maybe some milk, anything to busy himself while he waited for his body to succumb to fatigue. Dawn, he decided, unless it was just the smudges in front of his eyes, gave everything a funny light. It was rare that he saw the sun peep up from beyond skyscrapers. More often than not, he was in bed by four and slept until twelve, giving him an hour to get up and go to his classes. Dawn was… pretty. For a moment, a moment Dan did not understand, he wished he lived somewhere he could watch the sun come up from beyond the horizon… but that was stupid. New York was his home – where else could he possibly live?

The carpet burned his feet, shocking him – he had forgotten about that. A week ago, he and Rorschach stormed headfirst into a gang hideout (stupid, really) and he'd trod on recently extinguished coals spilled from an old-fashioned fireplace. They burned, right through his boots, singing his soles just enough to be painful. Apparently, they hadn't healed yet. Rorschach had apologized, in his clipped way, but it was a little hard to blame him for throwing some gangbanger into the coal in the first place. It was just how he did things – something you had to get used to.

Dan clapped a hand to his forehead. Rorschach. Rorschach followed him home last night, too exhausted to speak, but Dan had been too concerned with his own weary body to care about his partner. Had he walked to… wherever it was he stayed most of the time? Was he still here? Cursing his stupidity, he shuffled carefully to the living room – if he was here, he would be in that room – the only room besides the basement and the kitchen that he felt comfortable in.

His hand on the doorknob, he paused – listened. From inside, gentle rasping noises fluttered underneath the door and through the cracks. Tentative, Dan turned the knob as quietly as possible and nudged the door open just enough to slip into the room. Yes, he had stayed, he thought with a little relief – probably didn't have the energy to go anywhere else but slink into the living room and fall onto the couch. His overcoat and scarf lay discarded on the floor, flecked with blood that was not his, leaving a pungent odor that wafted through the room. Sad, but it didn't bother Dan much. After a few years of hanging around Rorschach, you got used to the smell.

Still… would it hurt to run his things through the wash? Their owner was asleep, curled up with his mask pressed into the cushions (how did he breathe?), and would not notice if he stole them away for an hour. When he woke up, they would look cleaner, smell better… Dan couldn't expect him to be grateful, of course, but perhaps he would get a grunt of silent thanks and buried pleasure. That was all he ever got, anyway – and besides, _he _would feel better if Rorschach smelled better.

Creeping on tiptoe, he slunk his way over, doing his best not to breathe. As he moved closer, his gaze fluttered to parts of Rorschach's skin he had never seen before – bits of his skinny wrists, a small strip of neck. Those, too, were marred by healed and fresh lacerations, some small and pale, others angry and red. A few, he thought with a wince, Rorschach obviously tried to stitch up himself. Yet, his partner never complained, never whined about it. He fixed himself, brushed himself off, and stalked away, ready as ever for the next challenge. He was so odd, so strange, so _brave_… so small.

Yes, Dan decided, grabbing the clothes and quickly shuffling to the door. The least he could do was wash his coat. The very least he could do.

Once he closed the living room door behind him, Dan figured it safe to make a little noise, and whistled a bit as he walked. It was almost comical, his love for order and cleanliness, but there was just something about little tasks like this that made him cheerful. Maybe it came from fond memories of his mother, bustling about the house busy with one thing or another, but always leaving enough spare time to pat him fondly on the head. He winced as he trundled into the laundry room. It was not a good thing to compare yourself to your mother – or at least, it wasn't in this case. As if his dad didn't have enough to roll over in his grave about; now he had to worry about Dan's womanly habits. Smirking, he glanced up at the ceiling in silent homage to his departed parents. He missed them, sometimes – missed them dearly.

Dan dug his hands into the coat's pockets, scrabbling for their contents. He didn't want to accidentally destroy something – this was supposed to be a gesture of appreciation, not the singlehanded murder of everything (if anything) his partner held dear. Amazed, he began to keep account of every item he placed on top of the dryer, and by the time he was scraping at grimy pocket bottoms, he had a sizable pile. Briefly, he poked through them – on a daily basis, Rorschach carried with him a flashlight, sugar cubes (_his_ sugar cubes, but no complaint), the map he frequently used in New York's underground, three different pens, a few pennies, the journal-that-under-no-circumstances-should-he-ever-open, a withered receipt from the Gunga Diner, a folded-up check, and a thin, wrinkled envelope.

Fascinating.

The sweet smell of laundry detergent wafted through the room and burned his nostrils. Using one arm to dump the clothes into the washing machine, he briefly debated how much to use – what exactly were the procedures to wash a dingy, blood-crusted trench coat and a must-have-been-white-at-some-point scarf? In the end, he poured almost half the bottle in before setting the knobs and turning it on. You couldn't be too careful with something Rorschach wore – there were probably quite a few deep-set stains to kill.

Now, he sighed, feeling awfully satisfied with the rhythmic humming of clothes being well washed. What to do with the mass he had removed from Rorschach's pockets? He could just leave it there, wait until the clothes were washed and then surreptitiously slip them all back in… perhaps, that way, Rorschach would never notice. He did not think his partner would be too keen on the idea of his "snooping" around his personal belongings. Despite himself, Dan picked up the envelope and studied it. It didn't really look white anymore – somewhat yellowed at the edges, and wrinkled enough that it must have been terribly old. Had he kept it so long out of sentiment, or was it merely forgotten amidst the other things he kept…?

"Daniel." Guiltily, Dan leapt up and hid the envelope behind his back. Like a five-year-old with his hand caught in the cookie jar. "Where are my clothes?"

He was so _small_. His pinstriped suit didn't fit quite right, but he knew – those bags in the fabric here and there proved that his partner was nothing if not miniscule, even without his diminutive height. For a second, he almost found it endearing, but then Rorschach turned his head towards the pile of his things and Dan's heart skipped a beat. Oh, _God_, he was dead. "Uh… I just… put them in the washing machine for you –"

"Why do you have my things?" His voice was calm, collected – too calm, in that sort of way that told him he had better start saying his prayers. Sure, he cared a lot about Rorschach, considered him a friend when practically no one else would, but damned if he wasn't terrifying sometimes.

"Your coat's in the wash. I just took them out a minute ago – no harm done, honestly." Quickly, Rorschach nudged him out of the way and sorted through the pile, muttering under his breath. When his voice hitched, and he went perfectly still, Dan remembered the envelope in his hand. "Oh, here." He held it out, sheepishly, wishing beyond reason that he could read Rorschach's mask. He would have really liked to know a few seconds beforehand if he was going to die. "This… this too."

It was as if time stopped, frozen with the wave of a hand or a pressed button. Rorschach's head tipped gently, looking down at the envelope, then back up at Dan. His hand moved as though through molasses, taking a century for his fingers to close and take back what rightfully belonged to him. The purple pinstriped shoulders… shook. What… was he really that upset? Concerned, he held out a hand in comfort.

"Get out."

"What?" Rorschach's voice was rough as gravel, grating and angry, and now his whole body shook with suppressed rage. Dan knew he was pushing it, but it was just a wrinkled up… what did it matter?

"Get _out_!" Rorschach lunged forward, reaching as though to strike, and Dan quickly retreated out the door. It slammed shut behind him, and awful, violent banging noises began to clamor from inside. Dan pressed his face to the doorframe, wincing at each clatter and metallic boom that signaled the abuse of his (somewhat expensive) washing machine and dryer.

"Rorschach – Rorschach! Stop that!" The peaceful humming stopped dead, cut off like a hand to a windpipe. Something made a slapping noise onto the floor, the machine door banged, and all the noises ceased. Dan was not so easily fooled – he knew his partner by now, better than anyone else ever had, and it didn't take a lot of thought to realize this might be a trap. It would be just like him, funnily enough – luring him into a false sense of security, only to strike when he let his guard down. However, when minutes ticked by and nothing happened, he finally worked up the nerve to apply pressure to the door and peek inside.

Rorschach sat against the wall, hands fisted in his mask, his head on his knees. All the objects that had been sitting on the dryer now lay scattered in a corner of the room. His soaking coat and scarf sat in front of him in a sad, dejected mess, puddles from it racing across the floor to touch his shoes. There were a couple obvious dents in Dan's machines, but nothing irreparable – or irreplaceable. Right now, though he hated to admit it, he was slightly more concerned with his partner's condition. He did not move when Dan opened the door; the blots on his mask sat perfectly still as his clothes were dumped back into the washing machine; and he barely breathed when Dan slid down the wall to sit beside him. The last was probably from discomfort, but he hardly cared.

Gently, he extracted the envelope from the gloved fist, smoothed it out, and examined it. Rorschach tilted his head, not looking directly at him, but open to a conversation. "I didn't mean to upset you." He handed the envelope back as proof and watched Rorschach hold it in two fingers, rubbing the corners like a worry stone. "You keep a lot of junk in your pockets, man."

"Not junk." Dan shrugged, waving a hand as if to say, 'whatever.' Rorschach nodded and rested his forehead against his knees again. "I know."

"Know what?"

"Was an accident. Trying to do me a favor. Ruined it. Like I ruined your other surprise." Dan pondered that for a moment, trying to think of another time when Rorschach had lashed out and brutally abused his belongings and/or machinery. "Grappling gun, Daniel." Despite himself, he slapped his knee and smiled.

"Oh, yeah! I tried to give it to you, to commemorate taking down Underboss, and you thought I was trying to shoot you. You nearly broke my nose." He chuckled a bit at the memory, stopping awkwardly when Rorschach turned to look at him with what must have been slight disdain. "It's funny in hindsight."

"I'm sorry."

Dan started, bumping his head against the wall. There was no way he heard that right.

"Broke your machine. Threatened you. Sorry." At that moment, though he still somewhat doubted the credulity of this situation, he didn't care if Rorschach was lying or not. Hearing that word was enough – it made up for each mistake, each slip-up Dan had committed, each time he'd pressed too far in their friendship and sent Rorschach scurrying into the shadows. That didn't matter anymore. Even though Dan was terrible with relationships, stammered and stuttered through them like a baby learning to walk, his partner still apologized. He still thought he needed to say he was sorry.

"It's okay, man," he said, and he meant it. "You didn't break it. Who gives a shit about washing machines, anyway?" Getting to his feet quickly, he almost felt like jumping in the fragrant puddle the coat had left on the floor – almost. A very large part of him, larger than his giddiness, wanted that mess cleaned up right away… but he turned to Rorschach instead. "If you can wait an hour, your stuff will be good as new. Want some breakfast?"

Carefully, Rorschach gathered up the pile of things from his pockets and set them on the dryer with the envelope on top. He nodded once and stiffly followed Dan out into the hallway. Cheerful again, aches and exhaustion forgotten, Dan pulled the door shut and began to walk towards the kitchen before a tight grip on his pajama sleeve stopped him.

"Inside the envelope…" Rorschach rasped, looking down at the floor and letting go of Dan's arm. "…A picture."

"Really?" he asked, trying to keep his voice light and non-confrontational. Rorschach wouldn't tell him if he didn't want to, didn't want him to know. "Who of?" It was silent again, and he let his partner walk ahead so he didn't feel like Dan was caging him into an answer. When Rorschach was safe enough away, he turned back a bit and spoke over his shoulder.

"My mother." Part of Dan found that hard to believe – after all, it was hard to think of Rorschach as a person sometimes – but he knew, as a fault, that Rorschach found it extremely difficult to lie. Why would he, anyway, about something like this? Either way, as he made his way past him into the kitchen, he reached out and clasped his shoulder for a moment before letting go again.

There was still so much Dan had to learn – especially about his partner. Perhaps sitting around the table with him, doing something so natural as eating breakfast, would lead to a few more revelations.

**AN: A little bit of a different pace – longer, less of a plot more than just a semi-typical morning after patrol. I like little moments that capture how these two… interact. "Design" was about one of the calmer moments, when Dan could pretend they had a normal relationship; this one is… well, about cranky Rorschach, I suppose. We know their partnership wasn't all beans and sunshine. I'm quite fond of this chapter. I was going to save it for later, but… eh. I have other chapters to work on, and I hate holding things back from you guys.**

**And I know, Rorschach hated his mom, I'm not fond of her either, but… she was his mother. It's not entirely illogical for him to have a picture of her somewhere. And who knows, it might be a relatively nice picture before (if there was a before) she became a prostitute.**


	6. Violence

Violence

"_Damage through distortion or unwanted alteration."_

It's hard to explain how much Dan likes these types of nights, when there's enough action on the streets so that it isn't boring but not so much activity that he's too tired to wheedle Rorschach into coming inside and eating some breakfast. It's nice to have a few stolen moments of just sitting in Archie, exchanging paying the city below full attention for propping up his feet and being able to _breathe_. Rorschach, of course, spends these rare, quiet moments pacing around deeper in Archie's belly, as he hates relaxing and on nights when they don't use Archie, he never lets Dan so much as stop to think. It's his punishment, more than likely – if he's going to make Rorschach relax, Rorschach's going to make Dan work, and his partner is about nothing if not retribution and paying back dues.

However, the problem with such relaxation is that once he does leap back into the action, it's almost as though his body takes a few extra seconds to wake up – and those few seconds can mean life or death, depending on who he's up against. The price of luxury, Rorschach would say – has said, multiple times, but Dan tends to ignore him when he goes on tirades like that, regardless of how much he appreciates his partner's concern. That's probably why he's so lucky that they're partners in the first place, because they balance each other out. Dan Dreiberg is persnickety, yes, and a definite neat-freak on occasion, but he is also relaxed and capable of enjoying himself, whereas Rorschach… well. They're pretty much polar opposites. Where Dan relaxes, Rorschach tenses; where Dan considers himself slightly liberal, Rorschach is exceedingly right-wing; where Dan values hygiene and properly feeding yourself, Rorschach has to be reminded that no, for God's sakes, you _don't_ eat raw eggs unless you want salmonella; you spit that out right now.

This is one of those nights. They have only stumbled on one mugging, and the sight of the Owlship looming over tenements and abandoned retail stores was enough to scare the man away. At first, Dan doesn't mind the steady clack of dress shoes against metal, but within the space of about half an hour it's driving him mad.

"Relax," he sighs, waving a hand over his shoulder at his partner. "There's nothing out there right now."

"There is always something," Rorschach replies, and the clacking doesn't stop. "Whether in daylight or not, cockroaches are always up to no good." Dan marvels briefly at how easily Rorschach yanks metaphors and euphemisms seemingly out of his hat – or does he come up with them beforehand and keeps a list of them in that notebook he carries around? – but the marvel lasts only a second before it's replaced with irritation.

"You can't lure cockroaches out of their hiding places. They come out when they're good and ready; we just have to be patient. Come and sit down for a few minutes," he coaxes, partly for Rorschach's sake but mostly so he'll stop that dreadful pacing. "You'll have a better idea of what's going on up here, anyway."

Oh, that does it. After a few more steps, his pace slows… and then resumes, but now, Rorschach's walking towards him and tossing himself into the copilot's seat. Dan almost laughs aloud – the way he's slumped against the chair with his arms folded screams temperamental defiance, like he wants to make sure Dan knows he doesn't like this. He does know, but frankly, he doesn't care. It's become commonplace to make sure his partner survives the night with his physical, emotional, and mental health relatively in tact… even if that wasn't originally part of the job description.

"I swear," Dan says, relaxing further back into his chair," one day, you'll wind up with an ulcer."

"Keep your laziness up, and you'll wind up dead," he shoots back, but it's light and non-accusatory. Almost… playful. Dan smiles, wide and cheerful, and he's willing to swear that his partner smiles, too.

Then the moment disappears, and silence descends as they stare out Archie's eyes into the darkness below. The radio crackles, filled with the occasional tiny mumbles of "nothing here" and "anything in your district?" Archie's gentle whir is like a lullaby, and the overall quiet is amiable, if not downright friendly, so Dan takes the liberty of watching his partner out of the corner of an eye. Despite all his protests, and his general dislike of anything comforting, Rorschach seems to enjoy being able to relax. He's slowly slumping, knees jutting out and shoulders sliding further and further down the chair, his hat tipping over his brow… and after another moment of observing, Dan gets it. Part of him really wants to laugh, but the repercussions aren't exactly desirable. He's woken Rorschach up before, and it isn't a pleasant matter – there's a reason Rorschach works at night, after all, because he's definitely not a morning person.

Still, he can't just leave him like that – he would never forgive Dan if he just let him sleep and they missed anything, so he turns the chair and slowly eases himself to his feet. Gentle wheezing that sounds astonishingly like snoring sneaks out from beneath Rorschach's mask, and the thought that maybe it's hard for him to breathe under that thing is what finally prompts Dan to reach out and touch his shoulder.

"Hey," he murmurs. At the sound, Rorschach springs up comically and swats his hand away, shaking himself.

"Wasn't asleep," he growls, and Dan smiles as he sighs. It's just like him – he'll never admit weakness, even if it's something so pointless and needed as rest. Dan walks over to the police radio for something to do, fiddles with the knobs and pretends to listen for any new alerts.

"You don't sleep enough," he says, almost conversationally. Rorschach grunts. Dan can hear his trench coat rustle as his partner undoubtedly rolls his shoulders in a shrug. He didn't really expect him to take that to heart – Rorschach had the bad habit of completely disregarding anything that pertained to his health.

"Enough to get by," he grumbles, and Dan's about to respond when the forgotten radio blares to life right by his ear. He only just manages to turn it down before his eardrums rupture, and Rorschach stiffens, listening intently. It's garbled, the damn thing always is, but they manage to hear "gang activity reported… possible fight…" and a muffled street name, and all of a sudden Archie is zooming away and Rorschach's easing himself out of the comfortable chair.

"We're lucky we heard that," Dan says, authoritative and stiff now that it's time to become Nite Owl again.

"Shouldn't have fallen asleep," Rorschach mutters, coming to stand by the pilot chair and peer out Dan's window. It doesn't give him a better view, but he's just glad his partner hasn't gone back to pacing yet. "Pathetic." Dan pulls Archie over the place, just above a parking lot that's only beginning to glisten with brass knuckles and pearly, wolfish teeth. He presses a few buttons, stabilizing him before turning to his partner and pointing at the belly hatch.

"Don't worry so much, man. Let's do this."

Initially, convincing Rorschach to stop pacing and park it in the copilot's seat was a complete and absolute victory, but as they drop from his bird and into the skirmish, he begins to really regret his decision. What he'd thought would be a simple dispatch – boom, bang, kick, _done_ – suddenly turns to knives and chains emerging from hidden pockets in leather jackets, and it looks like the gangs are willing to unite against a common enemy, and damned if he isn't so grateful that no one seems to have a gun.

It takes him a few seconds to fall back into the hang of everything, punctuated by a few blows that don't take down, merely bruise, and he puts it down for lack of activity all night, but it shocks him to see Rorschach having a similar problem. He can only watch for a moment before his attention is drawn away, but he sees a punch that was originally targeting a face _deflected_ and _returned_, a fist connects with what has to be Rorschach's mouth. There is a sickening crunch as his partner is nudged back a few feet, but then he has to turn back to the boy (how old can this poor kid be, fifteen?) swinging what looks like a bike chain at him.

He waits until the boy waves the chain into the air, swinging wide and aiming for his left shoulder, and quickly feints to the right. Carried by his momentum, all the poor kid can do is squawk when the Nite Owl smacks him sharply in a pressure point and sends him toppling to the ground. Other gang members fall in relatively the same way, too stupid or too doped up to learn from their fellows' mistakes. Once he recovers from his momentary loss of composure, his technique is great, if not standard, and he faces no real trouble. At some point, he sees two of the gang members still standing attempting to converge behind him, but Rorschach grabs one by his hair and drags him out of sight, and even though he isn't otherwise aware of his partner's presence, it's enough to know he's still moving.

Eventually, he tosses the last kid to the ground, watching dispassionately as some of the boys still able to move attempt to scramble to their knees and crawl away. Usually Rorschach goes after the runaways while Dan calls up the police, but tonight he stands a few feet away, perfectly still, a hand hovering in the space before the lower half of his mask.

"You okay?" Dan asks, bringing the radio up to his mouth. He doesn't wait for an answer, holds down a button and waits until he can hear the quiet, crackling static. It's handy, having a direct line to the police, even if they don't really appreciate his interfering with their radio signal. "Reported gang activity handled," he says, nothing but steel and justice in his voice. "We need someone to come pick these kids up."

"Daniel," Rorschach says all of a sudden, the word sounding a little distorted. Dan waves a hand at him.

After a moment's silence, there's a beep, and someone talks back. "Thanks. Sending squad right now. And kid? Get off the damn signal."

Dan chuckles and shuts the radio off, pulling out another control for Archie and piloting him down. "We did pretty good tonight," he says, flicking his gaze to the clock at the bottom of his vision. It's a little after three, and even though it's earlier than usual, part of him really thinks they should just call it a night. Rorschach hums, still sounding a little strange, and Dan remembers. He turns to his partner, "Did you want something…?"

The mask around Rorschach's mouth is bright red, congealed a little bit with blood, and each breath makes a wet, sort of gasping sound as he inhales through the fabric. Without a word, Dan grabs his partner's arm and practically hauls him over to Archie, shoving him inside and shutting the door behind them. He forces Rorschach back into the copilot's seat before running to his side and quickly turning on autopilot, setting the destination for home. Finally, with all that settled, he tosses off the goggles and turns back to Rorschach. He suddenly feels _so angry_, as if he started spewing blood just to piss him off.

"Why the hell didn't you _say_ anything?" he growls, and if he didn't know his partner better, he would swear that he flinches back into the chair a little.

"Unimportant. I'll be fine." Dan wants nothing more than to scream, but just barely keeps himself from reaching down and shaking the life out of Rorschach.

"You're _bleeding_, you idiot, that isn't _fine_. Jesus, Rorschach, you've got to say something!" His knees crack as he crouches on the ground before him, resisting the urge to cross his arms or plant a hand on his hip. "Let me see."

The answer is quick, monotonous, as though he was expecting this from the start. "No." But Dan _so_ isn't in the mood for his games, and decides to give him one more warning before he pins him down and rips it off himself.

"Rorschach, goddamnit, let me _see_." He seems to struggle with himself briefly, probably wondering if the consequences of defying Dan outweighed the benefits, but his hands slowly go to the edges of his mask. The fabric sticks in a few places, underside of the mask a terrifying pink (it almost looks like Rorschach is peeling off a layer of skin, but he pushes that disturbing image away), and after a few unsteady seconds it sits on the bridge of his nose. Immediately, Dan is practically three inches away from his chin, threatening with his eyes to pry open his mouth until his partner reluctantly lets his jaw drop.

Most of the blood is from a split lip, and it's hard to see inside his mouth with everything tinted that horrible red, but after a minute he locates the source of his partner's discomfort. "Oh, my God – your tooth." The left upper canine is… missing. _Gone_, it's gone entirely, as though it was never there before – he's almost tempted to believe that it _was_ never there, but he can see small flecks of crimson dripping from the spot with a steady rhythm. "Your _tooth_, what happened to your tooth!?" Rorschach shrugs, pulls back from Dan a bit and runs his tongue in the spot.

"Punched in face – knocked the tooth loose." Dan remembers seeing that, and feels a rush of guilt – if he hadn't made him rest, if he hadn't let him sleep even for just that second…

"Is it still back there?" he asks, even though there's really nothing they can do about it now. For a second, he imagines tucking the tooth under Rorschach's pillow, taken back to the days of his childhood when he would wake early in the morning and immediately rip up his bed looking for quarters.

"No. I swallowed it." All the happy childhood memories cease immediately, and Dan chokes on nothing as the full implication of that sentence hits home.

"You what!?"

"Swallowed it." Rorschach shrugs, completely nonplussed by the situation. A tiny trail of blood dribbles from his mouth to his chin, and he wipes it away with a gloved thumb. "Won't do any damage – everything comes out in the wash." For a second, Dan is completely shocked that he even _said_ that (although part of him thinks it's the reference to washing), but stunned silence gives way to chuckles, and then a laugh, and then he's practically guffawing, roaring with laughter while Rorschach looks at him with an obvious frown.

"That's… that's just gross, man," he gasps, wiping at his eyes.

"It's true." He decides not to fight it, and instead reaches a bit to grab an old bucket he'd left in Archie from the last time he cleaned his interior.

"Here," he says, dropping it in Rorschach's lap. "Spit all that out in here – when we get home, you can wash your mouth out." Rorschach obliges, hawking loudly before spitting a great deal of blood and who-knew-what-else into the bucket. Dan can't help but wince a bit. "God, swallowing your… that must really…"

"Not a big deal. Happens to everyone."

"It's never happened to me." Guilt washes over him again – it's absolutely his fault that Rorschach is now one tooth short, and he holds his hands in front of him in a helpless gesture. "Look, man, I – I'm really sorry. If I hadn't –"

"It's not your fault."

"I just –"

"It's not." Archie rumbles in the silence, and from the corner of his eye he can see them slowly approaching the warehouse that leads back to his house. Obviously, Rorschach bears no ill will. It's funny, but he really does seem completely unruffled, as though losing a tooth really doesn't matter much in the long run. Dan had an aunt who was missing a tooth, once – it certainly wasn't an attractive quality, but he doesn't really think Rorschach cares much about appearances.

He is brought back to earth by a hand suddenly uncomfortably close to his face. Rorschach looks down at him with the slightest turn of a smile on his lips, and Dan really can't help but smile back.

"Okay," he says, and they briefly grip each other's hands. Dan can see the tip of a tinted pink tooth underneath Rorschach's thin lip. His smile gets a little bit bigger. "Thanks."

**AN: If you don't believe me about the tooth, check the book – I found two panels where he's obviously missing his upper left canine. One is the bottom left-hand panel on the last page of "Fearful Symmetry," and the other is the panel just before Jon… ahem. I thought maybe I was just crazy, but I asked a few of my friends who've also read Watchmen and yes, he's missing a tooth. Part of me feels bad about that, and the other part thinks it's really funny. Of **_**course**_** he's missing a tooth. Of course.**

**I used this chapter to practice my present tense – before I started writing for Watchmen, I almost never wrote in present-tense, and then I only used it for stories I wanted to feel… different. I wanted to try it in just a general chapter rather than something like "Repeating"… and I don't know if I like it. But heck, it's a chapter, and I owe you guys after so long. I might end up just going back and switching it to past tense, but we'll see. Sorry it took me so long to upload – school's been whipping my butt.**


	7. Interpreter

Interpreter

"_One who interprets, explains, or expounds."_

Dan couldn't help but wriggle a little on top of the toilet lid. This was a _very_ uncomfortable situation: sitting half-naked in his bathroom, waiting for Rorschach to come at him with a needle and hydrogen peroxide was not tops on his list of favorite-things-to-do/places-to-be. From the corner of his eye, he watched his partner bustle around, digging through a first aid kit with a sewing needle clenched in his teeth. He had been nothing but gentle this entire time, careful not to aggravate the cut in Dan's left shoulder, so maybe "coming at him" wasn't exactly the best terminology, but damned if he didn't hate the idea of having his skin sewn up anywhere other than a hospital. Especially if the 'other-than-the-hospital' was his smelly, anti-hygienic friend.

Finally, Rorschach pulled a roll of bandages and cotton balls out of the kit, setting them on the counter. He pulled off his gloves, trench coat, suit jacket and hat already abandoned in the kitchen. "Stupid," he said with a sigh, rolling up his sleeves. "You should be more careful."

"I know," Dan sighed, and went to shrug. Rorschach laid a hand on his shoulder briefly, flinching away again once he'd made his point. His fingers were cold, and red hair and freckles dusted his arm all the way up into his sleeves. Red. Somehow, it suited him. "Thanks for doing this." Even if he'd rather be in a hospital.

"You're hurt," he said, running his hands under the faucet. Blood dripped from his fingers and puddle down the drain. Some of it wasn't Dan's, but he ignored that. "Don't want it infected."

When his hands were (relatively) clean, Rorschach took a cotton ball and unscrewed the cap on the peroxide. "Are you sure you can do this?" Dan asked, anxiously eyeing the cotton ball he was dabbing in the peroxide. He grunted, presumably a yes, and reached for Dan's shoulder. As the cotton ball grew nearer and nearer, slowed to the pace of a snail in the face of his terror, Dan thought of a million reasons why he should get up and run _right now_, one being that he didn't think Rorschach really had any business patching him up (_hospital_), another was that the upper half of his suit was draped over his knees and that _sure_ _didn't _look ridiculous, and another was that a grunt didn't just mean _yes_, regardless of how well he knew his friend –

"Yes," he said, as though reading his thoughts, and Dan's skin caught on fire. He hissed, flinching away from the burn. Rorschach grabbed him again, holding him still. "Stop squirming, Daniel." His words were more garbled than usual with the needle between his teeth.

"Sorry," he said, feeling the sting in his eyes and watching his vision go fuzzy behind tears. "It just… ah… hurts."

"I know," Rorschach replied, but he didn't stop swabbing at the cut. After a moment, the ache faded away, and Dan took the momentary lull of pain and the deft circular motion of his partner's hand to let his thoughts wander. It was his fault, honestly; he'd been stupid enough to assume that the kid was down for the count, that he wouldn't get up again, but he wasn't, and he did, that time with a knife. He'd gotten a good slash in, and barely grazed his back before Rorschach had leapt onto his shoulders and drove him firmly into the ground. Then it was, "Watch your step, Daniel," and, "Don't move, Daniel," and then (most embarrassing of all), "Costume off, Daniel."

Granted, he'd let him keep the lower half of it on (he really didn't think Rorschach would be any more comfortable with that than he would), and he was really quite clinical about the whole thing. He'd directed his gaze everywhere but Dan's awkward exposure (so far as he guessed, anyway, since it was hard to know exactly where Rorschach _was_ looking) and immediately checked to make sure the wounds weren't critical.

They weren't. But the one on his shoulder would need stitches, which accounted for the needle in Rorschach's mouth, which made Dan a lot more nervous than it should have.

"Still hurts?"

The grizzled voice snapped him out of his thoughts, making him jump a bit. The peroxide-doused cotton dug a little more firmly into his shoulder – he flinched, and Rorschach mumbled apologetically before taking it away to pour on a new one.

"Not anymore," Dan said, and Rorschach nodded once. They looked at each other, or Dan at least watched his mask move. When his partner's mouth twitched, he looked down at his shoulder. Blood still dribbled steadily, but now it bubbled a bit on its way down. Rorschach set down the cotton ball he'd just prepared, looked down at the counter in thought… and picked up thread instead.

Oh, Jesus.

"I'm saving the wound on your back for later."

Oh, _Jesus_.

"Should sew this up first." In a split second, the second it took for Rorschach to take the needle out of his mouth, Dan ceased to be Nite Owl, even a fraction of Nite Owl – instead, he was fully Dan Dreiberg, wearing a silly costume at four in the morning, sitting in his bathroom, about to be sewn up by a maniac and completely terrified of that goddamn needle. Before his partner quite reached his shoulder, the sinister instrument gleaming in his hand, Dan tried his best to leap up and scurry away without much conflict.

"Maybe I should just go to the hospital after all," he stammered. "I don't want to make you do it, _really_, it's no problem, I'll just go…" And then that hand was back on his shoulder, freezing cold fingers and the firmest grip he'd ever felt from hands so small, and he could almost feel eyes boring into his.

"_Sit_."

He sat.

"You're being ridiculous. Be still." But it was so _hard_ to be still, he mentally whined, it wasn't in him to sit still when someone was threatening him with a potentially dangerous object. Rorschach looped the thread through the needle, and Dan felt the seconds stretch into hours _again_, cursing having ever bought that do-it-yourself suture kit.

"I'm sorry," Dan stuttered, tensing his legs to get up again. "I just can't –"

"This will hurt."

It did.

Dan gritted his teeth, trying his best not to imagine the needle popping in and out of his skin. He'd forgotten how goddamn _bad_ it felt to be patched up like this without anesthesia, or at least a few drinks. Rorschach's teeth were clenched, too, but Dan assumed that was out of concentration and not pain. There was a firmness in his jaw, sheer determination on what he could see of his face, but his grip on Dan's shoulder was gentle, as though afraid of breaking him if he held on too tightly. He was brisk, too – even though he couldn't (wouldn't) watch his skin being sewn together again, from the way Rorschach's arm moved back and forth he could tell he knew what he was doing.

It really didn't surprise him much. There was so much about the man that he didn't know and would never ask. He didn't know his real name, he didn't know where he lived, or how he paid for anything; he didn't know if he had any hobbies outside of dressing up and fighting crime, or if he had anyone that loved him, somewhere, and was waiting for him to come home. For some reason, he doubted that last one, and it put a little crack in his heart to realize that more than likely, justice was all Rorschach had, justice… and him. Nite-Owl. Daniel. He had Dan.

Huh.

Truth be told, he still _really_ wished he'd just gone to a hospital, but if anyone else had to patch him up… he was glad it was his partner.

Rorschach grunted. "Thank you."

"What?" Dan blinked, and realized he'd been staring. Clearing his throat, he glanced to his left (no, no,_ no_, not there!) and looked away just as quickly to his right. "For what?" he asked, hoping that his cheeks only felt hot and weren't actually bright red. He hated how easily he blushed.

"For what you said."

For what he said? He hadn't said anything, not for the last few minutes, and… oh. _If anyone else had to patch him up_… seriously?

"I said that out loud?" Rorschach hummed, pulled a little too sharply on his shoulder and made him wince. God, he just wanted this to be _over_… he'd said that _out loud_, how ridiculous of him, Rorschach probably thought he was just some sappy loser, unable to keep from vomiting his feelings every time they hit him hard enough… "I, uh… sorry."

"No need."

They were quiet again for a time, one of them busy while the other mentally prayed the burning in his cheeks would just go away. After several throat clearings, the silence was just awkward enough that Dan absolutely had to say something. "Uh… you're pretty good at this. Where'd you learn?"

Rorschach stayed quiet a moment longer, seeming to weigh his answer carefully. "Had to learn. Difficult to explain rips in costume, so I learned to fix them myself." Instinctively, Dan scanned his suit, searching for any obvious lines or tears – there weren't any. He'd seen those pants ripped many a time, by weapon or by silly mistake, and he knew those weren't new pants (they smelled faintly of sewer, even days after the last time they'd been down there)… he was good. He wondered if the scar on his shoulder would be any less noticeable. "Stitched myself up a few times, too." Even though his shoulder ached, he still felt ridiculous, and the potential awkwardness of this entire situation was still heavy in the air, Dan couldn't help but give him the biggest smile possible.

"Then I'm really glad you're the one doing this."

They didn't talk the rest of the time Rorschach worked, only nodding in satisfaction at a job well done when they looked in the mirror at the final product. Putting the needle back where it belonged, Rorschach gave Dan a brief lecture on not aggravating his shoulder as he cleaned the cut on his back. He agreed, watching his partner bandage a small part of his upper torso and his shoulder. Once he'd finished, and they'd put the first aid kit back under the sink, Dan changed into his pajama pants before heading down to the kitchen, where Rorschach sat at the table patiently with two bowls of cereal.

Even after they finished breakfast and he meandered into the living room, Rorschach followed close at his heels. He sat with Dan quietly while he drank a beer and flipped through a book, and when Dan asked about it, he said he wanted to make sure the stitches didn't rip open again. He'd leave, once he was sure Dan wouldn't accidentally kill himself in his absence.

Dan didn't really believe him, so when Rorschach fell asleep on the couch during the early morning news, he didn't wake him.

**AN: Belphegor and I actually had pretty much the same idea – I was tired of stories where Rorschach gets his butt handed to him and Dan patches him up. Not to say that those stories are all bad (I actually really like some of them), there's just… a lot of them. I figured Rorsch patching Dan up would be a nice change of scenery. Belphegor happened to finish hers first/do a better job of the matter (go read it!), and by the time I figured out what I wanted to do with the idea, there are a lot more Rorschach-fixes-Dan stories and now I feel less cool. :)**

**In this chapter, the perspective was really important. I thought about doing it from Rorschach's point of view at first, since I really should work with him more (although he gets the last chapter, which is ridiculously long and should be good enough for him), but it would have been a completely different story… and I wanted it third person. There are still some similarities between my first-person and my third-person styles in this, which I did on purpose since we're a little more connected to Dan's thoughts/feelings and not floating around in the air above their heads. And… yeah. That's it, I think. Thanks for reading, by the way!**


	8. Diagonal

Diagonal

"_Extending from one edge of a solid figure to an opposite edge."_

It's all his fault.

Blood is spattered all along the alley, in clumps, in arcs, so high above his head he has to wonder how they got there. He looks down at the wrench he still has in his hand, ponders how hard you'd have to swing to get a sweep like that, and remembers. He did it. He did it to a boy, only pretending he was a man, who now lies dead at his feet with a decent dent in his skull.

There are others like that around him. They don't move, some because they can't and others because they _can't_, most of them victims to his blind and mindless rage. Some of them are Daniel's victims. Those are the ones that will be able to move tomorrow.

He can't remember what set it off. All he can remember is pouncing, a blurry haze punctured with some minor discomfort here or there, and a dull cry that brought him crashing back to earth. He seems to be operating on a hair trigger, lately – it's becoming harder and harder for him to maintain control. On many occasions, he goes into some kind of fog, loses track of who he is, and awakens to find himself surrounded by mutilated criminals. For Daniel's sakes, he tries to be careful and restrain himself. He tries to make sure he stops before the filth's heart does. Usually, it doesn't work, and they're left staring at a body. In those moments, Daniel simply sighs and does his best to look away.

Of course, Daniel _knows. _He knows about the Roche case. He's already said aloud, almost musing to himself, that his partner seems different. To his dismay, Daniel tries to battle it in his own way, rather than the mindless violence Rorschach typically tries to drown himself in. Almost every night, when they climb out of Archie and into Daniel's basement, he practically manhandles him until they get into the kitchen and proceeds to force food down his throat. He still tries to get Rorschach to sleep on his couch, or at least the cot in the Nest. Rorschach typically says no, but he is still weak enough that sometimes he gives in, and spends a few hours staring guiltily at the ceiling before he sneaks out again.

He hates it, but he knows why he tries. Daniel is hopelessly naïve enough to believe that everything will turn out for the best in the end. Daniel can't see the abyss that hangs around Rorschach, waiting for him to go too far. Waiting for him to fall.

Tonight, watching blood trickling from the Nite Owl's forehead, he wonders if he's finally gone tumbling down.

A woman, Rorschach remembers. Whatever started this had something to do with a woman, quite unsurprisingly. Desperate to look anywhere but his partner, he casts his glance back around the ring of bodies around him. One of them is indeed a woman – but her dress is modest, except for the gaping holes in her blouse and trousers, stained red with blood (such a waste of good fabric). Not a whore, then, he knows that much – but he still doesn't understand.

He looks back at Daniel's forehead, can sense his empty stare even through the broken goggles. His fists tighten, relax, and he drops the wrench. Where did he even get it?

"…Jesus," Daniel says, almost fearfully. He reaches up and touches the wound gingerly, smearing blood over his brow. Rorschach can still feel the way his arm shook, the way his hand reverberated with the strike of iron against skull. He almost feels sick, knowing that if he'd put even a little more force behind the blow, his partner could have been lying by that boy, identical cavities in their heads. They were only lucky his aim was off, that he hit more of the goggles and less of his skin…

Rorschach's fingers twitch.

Daniel removes his broken eyewear and examines them. He visibly swallows, taking a deep breath.

"Jesus," he exhales again. They look at each other, and the air feels heavy. Behind him, a taxi roars past the mouth of the alley, headlights briefly illuminating them. At the sudden intensity, a few of the scum moan, too incapacitated even to twitch. They need to move, standing here like this is compromising safety and identity, but before he can suggest moving on, he's struck by words he's heard so often, they shouldn't surprise him anymore.

"What the hell is wrong with you?"

He won't answer, at first. Can't answer. What would he say? Rorschach never thought he'd hear those words coming from Daniel, even though he's heard it all his life. For a moment, he imagines it hurts – just a bit – but the illusion fades, and he remembers that nothing hurts him anymore.

"Accident." It sounds like a cop-out, even to Rorschach. Daniel scoffs, incredulous.

"Accident? _Accident_? Is that really all you have to say? Look at what you _did_! This is the farthest thing from an accident!" Rorschach raises an eyebrow and revisits the mutilated lenses in Daniel's fist. They do take a long time to fix – his anger is understandable. It's not like you could waltz into a store and buy a new pair. Accordingly, he bows his head and tries to sound sorry. It isn't difficult.

"Didn't mean to hit you. Would offer to fix goggles, but not my area of expertise –"

Suddenly, Daniel is much closer, and his finger is in Rorschach's face. It takes a lot of self-control to keep from reaching up and breaking that finger immediately; the only thing that stops him is that it's Daniel, _Daniel_, and he's already damaged him enough. Still, he can't help but snarl and take a half step back. His partner follows.

"That's not what I was talking about, Rorschach, I –" The fight seems to leak out of him, like a hole in a balloon. Falling back again, Daniel gestures helplessly at a boy by his feet. "You killed them. Granted, they…" He bites his lip, even though Rorschach already knows what he's stifled. They _did_ deserve it. He doesn't know why, but certainly, they deserved it – scum is scum. Sin is sin.

Daniel seems to steel himself, closing his eyes and taking a deep breath before he continues. "They raped her. They killed her. I won't deny that." Startled, Rorschach glances back at the modest, dead woman, and wonders – is that what set it off? Did they stumble on the act, or arrive to find her already dead? "But, Jesus, Rorschach, those were kids. This isn't our job. We're supposed to turn them in – just turn them in."

Daniel is laughable, sometimes. Rorschach allows himself a grunt in a chuckle's stead. "Already taken justice into own hands, wearing masks. Might as well go rest of the way."

"No!" That anger's back – more than back, Daniel's furious now, and all of a sudden, Rorschach is severely uncomfortable. This is too… revealing, he decides. Nite Owl is standing in front of him, goggles off and guard down, and if anyone else were to stumble in or if one of the rapists (he likes that he now has a word he can attach to them, looking down at their battered bodies and not feeling a wisp of remorse) were to stir, they wouldn't see Nite Owl. They'd see Daniel. He can't let that happen.

"Nite Owl," he says sternly, stiffening. Nite Owl – not Daniel. It's the best way to get his attention, usually, but tonight he's completely ignored. It's not something he's used to.

"You bludgeoned them! With a wrench! That's not justice, that's just goddamn brutality!" They're too close, now; Daniel is a hairsbreadth away and his fists are clenching so convulsively that it's hard to keep his own hands from doing the same. "You could have killed me, too, Rorschach."

That's going too far. "Would never," he snaps. "Would never. Partners."

Daniel laughs, a mockery of his usual cheerful countenance. It's a disgusting sound.

"You came close.

The blood on his forehead is very distracting; it's still moving down his face, slow as syrup. Rorschach's imagination betrays him, maliciously showing him a picture of Daniel's face completely covered in crimson, steadily flowing from a fatal wound. He would never betray his pride – he _can't_ – but the thought forces him to avert his eyes. He can't let himself entertain that notion. It's just too much.

"Look at me."

He can't, he _can't_, all he can see is blood and knocked-in skulls and dead children and dead Daniel. He feels so out of control, so loose, like at any minute he's going to go spiraling into the sky or down into hell. It's too much to manage. Daniel's too close, he can smell his cologne, and it's mixing with the blood that seems to seep from these walls. He can't handle it. It's just too much.

"Look at me, damn it!"

Rorschach looks. There's only a trickle of blood, easily fixed, easily wiped away. Daniel's staring at him, angry, but confused, too. His eyes aren't quite focused right – he probably can't see. For the first time in a year, Rorschach feels like he might throw up. He'd forgotten how unpleasant that was.

Dan puts a hand to his temples and squeezes. "God, what the hell is wrong with you? What's made you like this?"

Rorschach gathers himself enough that he can respond without trembling. "Nothing wrong."

"Bullshit."

Then it dawns on him – it is bullshit. Everything's wrong. Walter, he thinks with revulsion, is supposed to be dead – but he's still here. He's still throwing him off, steering him in a direction he doesn't want to go anymore. Rorschach doesn't have to be sorry for what he does in the name of justice – it's justice. It's righteousness. The rapists lying around him and righteousness cannot mix; sin is sin; sin must be punished. Walter is trying to make him sorry.

"You've been like this for almost a year," Daniel is saying. One of his hands hangs in the miniscule space between them, as though he doesn't know what he wants to do with it. Rorschach wants to shove it away. "I haven't said anything, but… it's like someone flips a switch, and you're not you. You're someone else." His hand decides to land, finally, instead of fluttering nervously. It perches on his shoulder, meant to be comforting, but to Rorschach it feels like a cage. He swats it away.

"Let go."

"No." This time, both of his hands are on his shoulders, gripping tight. "I won't."

"Let _go_, Daniel." He hates to use his name like that, surrounded by people that could spread his identity throughout the underworld in a heartbeat, but it's necessary. Rorschach doesn't want to be touched, especially not now. Daniel needs to let go.

"No!" His hands are like steel traps, keeping him rooted to the spot, and Rorschach is reminded of how physically imposing Daniel is compared to him. Even with the elevator shoes, he's miniscule, and he feels like a sparrow caught by a hawk. A mouse caught by an owl. "You've been like this since you lost that Roche case. Damn it, Rorschach, I understand that her death was hard on you, but it's been a year. You have to move on, it's unhealthy to –"

That's it. Daniel's gone too far – he doesn't _know_, he doesn't _understand_, it isn't even about the little girl anymore, it's about making sure that the monsters don't get away anymore, and that he prevents it from happening again. He has to get out, he can't take it anymore, but he's still trapped by Daniel's hands. They grip harder and harder by the second. Daniel's shouting, now, trying to maintain his attention. Quickly, not allowing himself to think on it, Rorschach draws back his arm and strikes him as hard as he can on the nose.

It works. The hands fly away and quiver above Daniel's face, muffling a cry. There's space between them again, and Rorschach can breathe. He pants, raises his fists for another strike if necessary, and says, "Warned you, Daniel. Said let go –"

Daniel looks up at him. Blood is pouring from his nose, dribbling over his gloves and undoubtedly staining the material. Rorschach lowers his arms and stares. After a moment, the crimson has covered the lower half of his face, and it's like that image come back to haunt him, but worse, because the hurt in Daniel's eyes is much worse than he could ever envision.

It takes him a moment to remember that his shoulders are free, but when he does, Rorschach turns and runs.

He sprints all the way back to his apartment building, throwing himself up the fire escape and through the window without second thought to himself. In the dim light, he quickly notices that his left hand has blood on it – it's still wet. Daniel.

Rorschach tries to growl, to roar, to put all of his confusion into a noise loud enough to wake the dead, but all that comes out is a moan. Disgusted with himself, he rips off his mask and runs into the bathroom, stares at himself in the mirror. It should be punishment enough, it should, but all he notices through the cracked visage is that there's blood everywhere. It's on his hands, predominantly, dry and cracked along with wet and nauseating, but it's spattered all up his trench coat, on his arms, and stained onto his shoes. Most of it isn't Daniel's, it's not, but he can almost feel a broken, larger body draining itself onto him.

Leaping into the shower, he throws on the water, hot enough to scald, and wishes that he owned a bar of soap. Instead, he scrubs at himself with his hands. It doesn't do anything – the blood won't come out, it'll never come out, even if he takes his clothes to the cleaner's dozens of times (or even if he sneaks them in with Daniel's laundry, like he used to, returning in the dead of night to find them neatly folded and waiting for him on the kitchen table). The spots might disappear, but Daniel's blood will always stain his gloves. Blaire Roche's blood will always stain his hands.

Finally, he does throw up. Bent over, dripping wet and peering through strands of disgustingly orange hair, he watches the water pick up all the grime and dirt that comes with an unused shower and carry it down the drain. He waits for the vomit to disappear, and then he sits. Hands in his hair, Rorschach stares at the drain, wishing that if he sat here long enough, the water would erode him away and carry him down, too.

He sits there, covered in blood, and wonders if he really is Rorschach – and if he's not, then who could he possibly be?

No. It is bullshit. Everything's wrong.

It's all his fault.

**Weird one, I know. A little different. I just knew I needed a chapter with Rorschach's POV (since I have only one so far, not including the last chapter), and the phrase "It's all his fault" hit me and… stuck. I played with an idea like this several times before, but this one… I think I like this one best. It is weird, Rorschach is hard to manage, and I hope I didn't let anyone down with this chapter. I also felt bad since it's been a month (holy crap) – I haven't given up, I promise… I've just been busy with summer classes. This story **_**will**_** be finished. It will.**

**Also, I'm kind of irritated that I used the word "bullshit" in Rorschach's narration because unlike what some people think/write, Rorschach never curses. Ever. The worst thing that comes out of his mouth is whore, which is bad in itself (to me), but he never says anything worse. I was watching one of the movie B-rolls, and during an argument with Laurie (I laughed so hard I cried) he says something along the lines of "picked a hell of a time to blah blah blah" and I was shocked. I'm glad they didn't include that part – it would have been almost as jarring as the one time movie!Rorschach called Dan "Dan" instead of Daniel. He's just repeating what Dan said, though, so I guess it's okay. :) I'll forgive him this time.**


	9. Balance

Balance

"_Mental steadiness or emotional stability."_

It was raining – drops poured from the brim of his fedora, and Rorschach felt soaked to the skin. Patrol would be difficult tonight; although he had complete faith in Archie's ability to withstand any kind of weather, he was sure the rain would put Daniel in a terrible mood. He could already hear the complaints of, "Rorschach, _nobody_ is out tonight," and, "Do you have any idea how spandex _sticks_ when it gets wet?" He had no staying power, unfortunately – the first inconvenience or slight discomfort and he was ready to go home for the night and curl up with a cup of coffee.

Still, Rorschach mused, turning the collar of his overcoat up and drenching the back of his head in the process, he understood a slight dislike of nights like this. All this rain was making each layer of clothes stick to his skin, and he felt like he weighed an extra thirty pounds – it was nigh impossible to move stealthily along the rooftops so encumbered. The early November weather was crisp and cold, and it was all he could do to keep his teeth from chattering. Not to mention, he was perfectly aware that continued exposure to cold weather in a permanently damp state was the practical equivalent of begging for a cold. In all, though he would never admit it, Rorschach was quite anxious to get inside, and couldn't help a slight sigh of relief when he stole his way into the abandoned warehouse that led to Daniel's basement.

Lights high overhead dimly showed the way, in case he ever forgot (he could find Daniel's house in complete blackness, if he had to). He shook himself slightly, almost appalled at how much water simply flew off, before walking briskly into the tunnel. If possible, it was colder in the warehouse than it was outside. Rorschach could almost see his breath, even through the mask, so to compensate for the chill, he hastened his pace – the quicker he walked, the warmer he felt, and the faster he could get to Daniel's.

And yet, something didn't feel right. The ceiling lights were dim, obviously not at full power, and everything was suspiciously quiet. Daniel usually waited for Rorschach in the Nest, tinkering with Archie or working on that ridiculous exoskeleton in full costume, and he was never quiet when he worked. But tonight, there was no clanking of machinery, no faint strains of Billie Holiday or Nat King Cole coming from his phonograph – nothing to suggest that anyone was even in the Owl's Nest.

Nothing.

And that worried Rorschach a lot more than he particularly liked.

At first, he refused to let himself walk any faster – he was _not_ concerned, he was _not_ – but before he realized it he was practically jogging down the hallway, and two blocks worth of abandoned subway sped by within what felt like a few seconds. The lights in the Nest were off; everything beyond a few feet in front of him was draped in shadows. Edging in as slowly and silently as possible, he plunged quite nearly into total darkness. Didn't matter, really, he knew the Nest's floor plan by heart, but something that felt irritatingly like panic niggled at the back of his mind. It was ten o'clock, later than Rorschach usually showed up; but Daniel was _always_ up at ten o'clock, and even if he had decided not to go on patrol, he _always_ left the lights in the Nest on, if only to lure Rorschach upstairs and to a warm dinner or a brief sojourn in front of the television.

Rorschach's imagination, which always decided to start working at the worst possible time, quickly began composing a brief simulation of what might have happened: Daniel was waiting for patrol in the basement, in full costume and tinkering around. Suddenly, he heard intruders, and in the interest of keeping his identity safe put on his goggles, shut off the lights from the remote on his belt, and waited to confront his visitors. In a way even his sometimes morbid creativity couldn't dream up, Nite Owl was overpowered, and spirited away, to be held captive or murdered or –

No. He refused to pay it any attention – if Daniel's identity had been compromised, or if he was injured, there would be plenty of obvious clues here.

At least, there might have been. Although his mask usually gave him no trouble, attempting to peer through the layer of fabric sticking to his face into stark darkness was like giving a blind man a vision test. Rorschach couldn't see anything, not even the ground underneath him or the stairs that were about ten paces away to his left, and it was hard to navigate even a memorized area when Daniel insisted on leaving his things strewn about on the floor. Stretching out a hand, waiting to feel Archie's cool metal hull two and a half steps away, Rorschach instead caught his foot on what felt something like a toolbox and tumbled to the ground with a terrifying crash. He lay there for a minute, blinking and trying to regain the wind that had gone rushing out of his lungs with an undignified "oof," and had only just begun getting up when footsteps pounded down the kitchen stairs.

With a growl he thought was particularly terrifying, Rorschach leapt to his feet and faced the sudden intrusion, his fists raised and ready to beat the living daylights out of anyone. This person, he thought in a split second, must have made off with Daniel, and was returning to the scene of the crime to rob him and add insult to injury. It was a plausible theory; they'd met criminals desperate or ridiculous enough to pull such a stunt, and who wouldn't want to help themselves from Nite Owl's amazing stash of gadgets and inventions?

The lights came on with an awful suddenness, and Rorschach threw a hand over his eyes before he could get a good look at whoever had taken Daniel. When he'd blinked back into sight, the first thing he saw was a soaking umbrella closed and pointed at his chest. Being threatened with a weapon didn't surprise him much, but the person holding it with a vicious expression was a bit of a shock.

"Daniel."

It _was_ Daniel – perfectly unharmed, from what he could see at a glance, and looking a little bit surprised himself. Eyes wide behind fogged glasses, he lowered the umbrella and a tint of red came into his cheeks.

"Oh… oh hey, Rorschach. I… oh." He set the tip of the umbrella on the floor, leaning on it as if it was a cane. It bent dangerously in protest, shaking rain onto the floor and Rorschach's shoes, but he was a little more concerned with the sheepish look on his partner's face. "I didn't tell you I wouldn't be able to go out tonight, did I?"

Rorschach squinted and frowned, aware that even though he couldn't see it, Daniel could feel the glare aimed square at him. He felt absurd, worrying about him when there was no reason to worry at all, and in panic's place he felt a dull fury rising in his chest – he had _no right_ to go and make a fool out of him like that. "No," he said shortly, turning to the side and adjusting his scarf. "You didn't." With a heavy sigh, Daniel turned and slowly walked toward the stairs into the kitchen, and though he knew he was expected to and hated it, Rorschach followed him at a safe distance.

"Man, look, I'm sorry," he said, gesturing with his free hand and peeking back over his shoulder. Rorschach grunted. "I really thought I had. I just–" Enough of that, Rorschach thought with another frown; he had every right to be angry and furthermore, he had every right to know why Nite Owl – his _partner_ – had found it necessary to skip a night on the streets. The second his feet touched tile, and the basement door was shut, he folded his arms and refused to budge another inch.

"Where were you?" Daniel flushed again and took his glasses off to clean them on a handkerchief for cover.

"…Out," he tried, replacing his glasses and fiddling with his hands nervously. Rorschach was used to such attempts to deflect conversation.

"Out where?"

He sighed and rubbed the back of his head, tilting the umbrella up against the refrigerator. "…I was at a play, all right?" he said finally, putting a fist on his hip as he moved his hand to a temple. "It came out a few weeks ago, and the review said a lot of really good things about it. I thought it might be… nice. I haven't done anything fun like that in a while." Rorschach didn't answer for a moment, so Daniel directed his attention and hands to the tie at his neck and walked towards the sink. After he'd had enough time to absorb this information, Rorschach snorted and shook his head.

"Huh. At a play. Not surprising." Daniel turned with his hands full of the tie he was attempting to loosen and held them up in an "all-right-you-got-me" way oddly similar to the way criminals usually begged them for mercy.

"Now, don't be like that. I happen to like going to the theater every once in a while. Besides, we–" Now, that was a surprise. Despite himself, Rorschach jerked a bit and fought desperately to keep his countenance from changing. We, _we_, who could possibly be the counterpart to that?

"We?" he managed to vocalize, putting more of a curious lilt into it rather than outright indignation. Free of his tie by now, Daniel threw his hands up into the air and scoffed exasperatedly.

"Jesus, Rorschach, what is this, one of your interrogations? Are you going to break my fingers next? Yes, _we_. I went with a young woman I'd made brief acquaintance with at Harvard."

Well. There was little Rorschach could say to _that_. He almost spouted off on his typical topic of conversation after a woman came up, about how they were usually nothing more than degenerate whores looking for easy money or simple, sick pleasure, but funnily enough, he didn't really feel like it. Of course, he _knew_ women were like that, and he'd said so many times, but this time it wasn't just some anonymous prostitute lit unflatteringly by streetlights. This woman… _Daniel_ knew this woman. He went to a play with her. Was she simply deceiving him, pulling the wool over his naïveté, or was she really…?

Daniel shuffled his feet awkwardly, looking as though he expected Rorschach to reach out and punch him in the nose. Earlier, he really wouldn't have minded doing so, seeing as how he was still a little sore about not even being given a quick addendum about his partner's intended absence. Right now, however, all he seemed capable of was staring blankly at the tiled floor. The silence practically drowned them, squeezing the breath out of their lungs before Rorschach became capable of forcing his mouth open again.

"It went well?"

They both blinked back surprise, 'why would you care?' obvious on Daniel's lips. Instead, he chuckled nervously and moved the umbrella out of the way before opening the fridge door. "Well… no. Not really. She kind of walked out in the middle of the play." Before Rorschach could even get a word out, Daniel turned around with a beer bottle in one hand and a water bottle in the other. He shrugged apologetically and held it out. "Said she couldn't handle it anymore, and if I wanted to join her, she'd be getting coffee down the street."

Rorschach couldn't help but feel a little amused as he took the plastic water bottle. Somehow, he already knew where this was going. "And?" he asked, slipping the bottle into one of his pockets. Daniel pulled out one of the kitchen chairs and half-sank into it, hovering over the seat with the beer between his fingers.

"I stayed until the end." Rorschach snorted." It was good!" he cried, standing up again, throwing up his hands. "What else was I supposed to do?"

"Also unsurprising," Rorschach said. He stuck his hands in his pockets, still damp enough that the paycheck he'd kept in there for safekeeping felt like little more than a wet tissue. That would be difficult to explain to the bank – no one kept checks in their pockets for a week and a half, especially not if it were raining. He shook his head. "Sounds just like you, actually."

With a heavy breath, Daniel flopped into the chair and popped the cap on his beer with a miserable expression. He took a swig before he answered, probably a little more than was appropriate for one gulp. "Okay, okay, I know. It was stupid." Gesticulating with the neck of the bottle in his fist, he looked like one of the drunks Rorschach saw tonight on the way over – deluded with drink and narrating what might have been an interesting story were it comprehensible. The comparison didn't really amuse him much – had he already had a few drinks before this? "To be honest, though…" Daniel continued as he put his head on a fist, "…she wasn't the same. I didn't like her as much as I thought I would."

"Obviously." With a huff, Daniel set the beer down with a loud clunk.

"You know," he said a little bitterly, "for someone who has such a stunted sense of humor, you seem to be getting quite a laugh from this." On the contrary, Rorschach thought with a frown, this was perhaps the farthest thing from laughable. He could pretend it was of no concern, play it off like one night of self-gratification in the midst of many others spent serving justice, but this sudden frivolous nature concerned him. What if deciding to attend a play wasn't just a spur of the moment thing, and was merely the prelude to many other nights where Daniel would put off patrol simply because he didn't feel like it? The city needed its crime fighters, every one of them, and could not afford to lose someone so good as Nite Owl.

However, instead of expressing his concerns (which was entirely out of the question), Rorschach bobbed his head. "I apologize," he replied simply, and Daniel sagged in what looked like dejection. He took off his glasses and covered his eyes with a hand, rubbing his temples.

"…It's okay," he said, muffled from underneath his hand. "I didn't mean it like that. Oh, Jesus, look at you!" Suddenly, he leapt to his feet, almost knocking over both chair and beer bottle in the process. "Here I am whining about my evening and you're soaked. Do you want something hot to drink? Fresh clothes? Let's at least go into the living room where it's warmer." Rorschach shook his head no to the drink and the clothes, but he followed his partner down the hallway and sat on the couch with him. Daniel tossed a blanket his way, but Rorschach pushed it off his lap and let it pool around his feet. After another minute's stunted conversation punctuated by blatant worrying, Daniel seemed to melt into the couch and closed his eyes. "You were right, though. It was kind of shitty of me, just letting her go like that."

Rorschach crossed his legs, balancing his ankle on his knee and tilting his hat down over his eyes. The sudden temperature change wasn't making him sleepy. It wasn't. "Probably too good for her anyway," he muttered, and he meant it, especially since his nit-picky partner wasn't complaining about his assuredly ruined couch cushions.

"Uh… thanks." It went quiet again, Daniel's fingers twitching a bit as though he ached to get up and switch something on to drown out the stillness. Rorschach simply waited, unscrewing the cap on the water bottle and raising his mask a smidge to take a quick drink. Mid-gulp, however, Daniel turned to him and gave him a strange little smile that set him on edge a little bit. He didn't like where that smile was going. "You can ask, you know," Dan said, rolling his shoulders, "I know you've been dying to."

"No idea what you're talking about." He really did have no idea – he wasn't _dying_ to ask anything; as far as he was concerned, the conversation had already curled up and died.

Daniel drummed his fingers against the armrest. "We saw Equus – it just opened not long ago." Rorschach thought for a moment about word association, pondering the sudden remembrance of the only glimpse he'd caught of the Summer Olympics two years ago – some dive in Queens, a brief glance at the ratty television on the bar during a drug bust, in the midst of the equestrian events (an exceedingly odd choice for a legendary opium ring)… Equestrian?

"…About horses?" he asked, shocked when Daniel nodded in the affirmative. Who would want to spend three hours watching a play about horses? He could understand if it were about owls; then perhaps he could imagine his aviation-obsessed partner sitting in rapture up 'til the last second, but how could a person tolerate hours of simply horses? How much could be said _about_ a horse?

"Sort of. It's basically about some kid who has this psychological problem; he's religiously and sexually fascinated by horses."

What?

He _what_?

"It was a little surprising, mentally, but the play was very well done, and would you believe it, the actors dressed up like horses _didn't_ look like idiots, one way or another. I mean, they had giant fake horse heads on, but it just didn't look weird. It would have definitely made an interesting case study if it were true…"

It was impossible to register anything coming out of Daniel's mouth, all of it just white noise with no comprehensible worth. Impossible – this was on _Broadway_? He knew the theater was practically a hub for liberalist propaganda, openly homosexual actors and other vices, but he couldn't imagine such immorality being at the public's fingertips. And Daniel, _Daniel_, went and saw and _enjoyed_… he couldn't have heard right. No, he hadn't heard right.

Daniel paused mid-chatter and cocked his head a little. "…Are you okay, man?"

"The play is about…" Rorschach gesticulated meaninglessly in the air to replace the phrase, as at the moment he was having trouble with remembering what it was. "…With horses."

Daniel shrugged, nonplussed. "…Sort of. It's more a psychological drama than anything else –"

"No wonder she walked out."

"Oh, Rorschach, come on; it wasn't _that bad_ –" Rorschach got up from the couch, kicking the blanket off his feet and fixing his fedora.

"Immoral, Daniel," he said as he adjusted the tie on his coat and fixed the collar. "Unnecessary for any literary work, much less forcing it down the throats of innocent theater goers." Daniel reached out and grabbed his sleeve before he could walk a single step, getting up himself. He had a weight advantage, being of a different build and quite a bit taller. Rorschach wasn't going anywhere, unless he felt like tearing his sleeves, which he didn't – he'd just sewn a hole in his suit jacket last week, and was of no mind to do it again.

"They didn't show us anything, and he didn't even really do anything to the horses besides put their eyes out, and –" Rorschach fixed him with a glare, making sure Daniel saw his frown before he pulled the mask back down. He sighed and brushed a few unruly curls back into place. "…Okay, well, I guess that is something, but Jesus, Rorschach. Sit down, for Christ's sakes; it's nothing to throw a fit about." Daniel sat back on the couch, dragging him down as well before Rorschach dislodged himself and sat down as far away from him as possible. "You didn't even see the play. I did. And believe me, I was in no way morally offended and I thought it was a spectacular performance."

Rorschach huffed. "Hardly helps your case. Can't believe you took a woman to see that–"

"Will you knock that off?" Daniel cried, slapping the couch cushion. "I'd wanted to go to the theater for a while, and the review said it was a great show! You know what," he continued, gesturing towards the ceiling as though appealing for divine intervention, "I almost thought about asking you, but since you're too high and mighty to appreciate anything that offends your sensitive moral constitution –"

For the second time that night, Rorschach found himself paralyzed and almost incapable of thought. "You what?" he asked, tongue heavier than lead or thirty pounds worth of sopping coat. Daniel turned an embarrassing pinkish color, flushed with what must have been frustration. He didn't look like he'd meant to say that.

"Almost, anyway. I know you'd never go anywhere without your mask. And Rorschach couldn't very well show up on Broadway with front-row tickets. Besides," he said, fixing Rorschach with a very serious stare that hinted at no joke or pun intended, "friends see plays together. And we're friends. Aren't we?"

He didn't answer – couldn't. Were they friends? He knew it was possible to work with someone every day and feel nothing for them whatsoever, just an impersonal indifference, but with Daniel, it was different. As Walter, he'd worked with some of the same people for nearly fifteen years of his life, but he'd fought with Nite Owl at his side for less time than that… and it didn't feel the same. That semi-irritating twinge of warmth he felt in his gut when they worked or talked or even just spent time in each other's company – was that friendship?

Daniel coughed uncomfortably, and from the look on his face, Rorschach knew he was going to change the subject. "…You've seen a play before, haven't you? Everybody's seen at least one."

The answer was out of his mouth before he could second-guess it: "Yes. I have." Seemingly relieved that the bait had been taken, Daniel relaxed back into the cushions. Rorschach followed suit – even if he was uncomfortable with revealing too much of his past, this topic was quite a bit less dangerous than their previous conversation.

"When was it?"

"A long time ago." He remembered standing outside the theater, seventeen years old, dressed in a tweed suit he'd poorly made himself and feeling out of place among Jewish fat cats with expensive clothes and rotund stomachs. "Went with a girl – coworker set us up. Had terrible taste in theater." Despite all his attempts to repress it, he remembered that, too: she hovered over him by two or three inches, had too much make up on, and was obviously as disappointed with him as he was with her. "Awful night. Didn't like the girl, and hated the play, so I left early. Never saw her again."

Daniel suddenly looked uncomfortable again, and seemed to cast around for something to say for a moment. "Oh… I'm sorry. Um… what was the play?"

"...The Music Man."

This time, the silence only lasted a second or two – Daniel hadn't been able to contain his uproarious laughter for long. It really wasn't a humorous memory, and in fact was one of the worst nights he'd ever spent before giving up being just Walter, but in the warm, brightly lit living room, he spared a little smile as his partner wiped his eyes and attempted to control himself.

"Oh, Jesus, Rorschach; I couldn't imagine you liking a musical anyway, but… the Music Man? That must have been torture for you."

"Like I said – terrible taste in theater."

**AN: This is the most ridiculously long chapter I've ever written, and I'm part proud of myself and part appalled. So far, it is also the chapter I've done the most research on – I read New York Times reviews and plot summaries for both Equus and the Music Man, which opened in 1974 and 1957, respectively; studied the blueprint for the Nest found in the Sourcebook; very seriously memorized the layout of Dan's house; looked up popular 60's suit styles for a paragraph I ended up editing out (I figured Dan would be behind the times and have an older suit); and even looked up whether or not spandex chafes when wet to correct a mistake I made. There might still be some inaccuracies, but I tried my best. I also picked Equus because it fit the timeline perfectly (about a year before Walter's downfall) and was likely the play Rorschach would most be offended by, and the Music Man because that's also a play I figure Rorschach would hate with every fiber of his being.**

**And it's been a month again. Time flies, I suppose, but I must apologize for the lateness. To be frank, I'm sort of running out of ideas. I still have six words to go, all of which have already been picked out, one completed, and one three-fourths done, but topics are running thin and I have to rack my brain for new ones. Hopefully I can come up with a few new ones before school starts – although I would love to spend all my time on this story, senior year comes a-callin'. I also wouldn't mind some requests, if there's some topic or scenario you'd like to see our boys in. :)**


	10. Convention

Convention

"_An agreement, compact, or contract."_

Walter sniffled slightly as he hovered over his sewing machine, groping blindly to his left for a tissue. Around him in all directions, the cacophonous symphony of sneezing, nose blowing, and wretched coughing echoed practically into the street outside – everyone in the shop was sick. And Walter blamed every last one of them for the cold he knew was coming. He knew none of them made very much money, and this area of the city was not the smartest place to see a doctor, but it was completely within the realm of human capability to keep _other_ people from getting sick. All it took was covering your mouth when you coughed or sneezed, or washing your hands frequently, and no one bothered to do either.

Recognizing his coworkers' disregard for others' health, Walter had tried to keep himself from growing ill as best he could. He refused to touch anything that had recently been sneezed on (infuriating his boss when "anything" eventually became his sewing machine), and sometimes ducked into the bathroom once or twice a day to scrub his hands until they came out from under the scalding water red as a lobster. He had even added an extra layer of clothes to his costume, throwing on another jacket underneath the trench coat while Nite Owl shivered in his second skin. Despite all his care, Walter thought as he carefully pedaled a blouse through its seams, it hadn't really helped. His nose was constantly running like a faucet, his nose was a terrible shade of red, and every so often a cough shook his body in a way he found a little foreboding. There was no way to get around it – he was falling prey to a cold. That inevitably meant that not only was Walter going to be sick for the first time in about eight years, but Rorschach would be sick for the very first time, and he could not afford to stay in for even a night. Criminals would not take a personal holiday in recognition of their foe's absence.

Of course, he didn't doubt Nite Owl's ability to take care of them alone, but it would be a personal admittance of defeat if he sat at home and sniveled on his mattress.

"Kovacs!"

Walter pulled the blouse out from under the machine's needle, scrutinizing it briefly as he turned to face the walrus he had for a boss wobbling towards him. His hand must have slipped at some point; the stitches up the side went a little crooked near the middle. Removing a cigar from his mouth, his boss narrowed his eyes at the material and coughed into a handkerchief.

"Looks good," he said, wiping his lips with the kerchief and stuffing it back into his pocket. "Listen, we just got a new order – some kind of cocktail dress the lady wants 'exquisitely made.'" With an imperceptible sigh, Walter carefully folded up the half-finished shirt and set it to the side of his workstation. He knew where this was going.

"I already explained I cannot work late," he said quietly, flexing his fingers to work out the stiffness. His shift was over in ten minutes – just ten minutes. Couldn't this woman have waited that long?

"You've been good about making deadlines without having to work overtime. Look, I'll level with you, Kovacs." His boss came in a step, hovering over Walter by a few embarrassing inches. Cigar smoke wafted into his face, probably by accident, and he resisted the urge to cough. "You're the best damn guy here – guys who are better are staying home sick. I know you have a lot on your plate, but I can trust you to get the job done quickly and right the first time."

It would have been almost flattering, if Walter wasn't busy feeling the sudden onslaught of a terrible headache. He resisted the urge to rub his temples, as though he could simply massage the pain out of his forehead, and clenched his fists to quell it. "I appreciate that, sir."

"Sure you do, kid. Thanks for being so accommodating. Lady wants it finished by next Friday, all right? Start it in the morning – you can go home a little early." His boss palmed a sweaty order into his clenched fist and waddled away, puffing on his cigar like a baby on a pacifier. Once he was a safe distance away, harassing a new girl about the poor quality of her skirts, Walter covered his mouth and tried to smother the cough threatening to burst from his lungs. The attempt failed miserably – people from all corners of the shop paused to stare at him in either mild concern or vague indifference.

Biting his lip to keep any further outbursts in, Walter stuffed the unfinished blouse into a drawer and picked up his jacket, leaving the dress order inside. Coworkers gradually turned away to resume their business, and no one watched him walk out the door.

It was already dark out, black as ink, and heavy clouds threatened either snow or freezing rain. Walter rubbed his hands together against the cold, holes in his threadbare gloves scraping against each other. The streets were almost empty, save a hollow-eyed junkie wallowing in the gutter and a gang of kids in the mouth of an alley. They eyed him suspiciously, sizing him up and down to see if he was worth sport or money, and he kept walking without making eye contact. As soon as he'd put three blocks between himself and the shop, he ducked into an alley and felt along the wall until he reached a city dumpster. Walter didn't need to be at Daniel Dreiberg's brownstone for another hour, but it couldn't hurt to be ready early – and putting on a few extra layers of clothes might help stave off his cold. He couldn't let it stop him.

It only took a moment to become Rorschach, shedding his skin and drawing on another (the middle of the transition was the worst, in semi-private with his pants around his ankles); the mask's ink swirled beautifully as it met his face, and suddenly he felt as though colds and frozen fingers never existed. Coat firmly tied over his silk suit, he almost sensed a surge of power running through his veins and invigorating every inch of his body.

Walter only just managed to lift his mask up before he sneezed. Maybe that surge of power was really a bloom of warmth, although he slightly doubted that as he was shivering again. He wrapped his arms around his torso briefly, not even bothering to pretend it wasn't to keep in heat, and collected himself long enough to spring up onto the nearby fire escape. The buildings here cramped together, as though they were huddling together against the crippling cold, and made it easy to cut the 20-minute walk to Daniel's down to ten minutes, maybe less. Rooftops also provided a little more seclusion, kept him away from prying eyes or punks who figured they could take down a superhero. Besides, he thought as he crept along the roof's edge, hot air rises, and if he kept telling himself that, maybe it would be true. His poor body would be unfrozen within the next few minutes.

Even with all his wishful thinking, the trick didn't work much; his shoes couldn't grip places covered in ice or snow (which was everywhere), and after so much slipping and sliding he almost felt ready to storm home and call it a night. On top of all the other frustrations, his nose _would not_ stop running, and after a failed attempt to tolerate it he had to roll up his mask and expose most of his face to a bitter wind. He was cold, he was tired, a broken bottle had snagged his trousers and ripped them, and worst of all, he was perfectly miserable – it was so easy to forget how much you hated being sick until it happened again.

Finally – oh, yes, finally – he could see Daniel's house about a block away. Walter had decided against using the warehouse tunnel (cold, hollow, and a few streets out of his way), and after watching the street for a few minutes he knew no one would see him go through the front door. He nimbly slid down another fire escape ladder, straightened his scarf, and bustled past the street lamps and up to the hideously painted doorway. Daniel put in a new lock since he last came in this way, probably as terrible as ever, but instead of breaking through he simply pressed the button underneath "Floors 1-4 – D. Dreiberg."

"Coming!" Noises echoed through the thin wood, suspicious mutterings and the occasional crash, and after a long silence the door opened a crack and one brown eye peeped out. "Yes?"

"Let me in, Daniel," he grunted, hunching his shoulders and trying to look more irritable than cold and upset. The door slammed shut, much to his surprise, but it swung open mightily with a chain dangling from a bolt. His partner looked… well, ridiculous, as he had thrown a sweater over the top of his costume and his hair stuck out every which way while his glasses dangled off one ear. Walter eyed him incredulously as he shuffled around him and into the welcoming cheeriness that seemed to permeate the house.

"Jesus, Rorschach, you scared the hell out of me. I didn't have time to change out of this – thought somebody had caught me with my pants down." Daniel wrestled with the sweater, fighting to get it over his head as Walter bent down and examined a ceramic vase lying in shatters on the floor next to an end table. That explained the crash. "I had to – damn it – this was just laying on a chair and – shit – it's kind of small on me now…"

"Didn't feel like breaking down your door," Walter said, stuffing his hands into his pockets. Daniel chuckled and yanked, sending the sweater flying across the hall. He sighed in satisfaction.

"I appreciate that. Besides, I don't know if you could break this one – supposedly, they're one of the best locksmiths in town."

"Would you be willing to test that?"

"No way, man." Daniel laughed again, cheerful and looking quite a bit more impressive now that he was just in his costume. "Come on – it's a little early, but it's dark enough to take Archie out." With a grin, he left his glasses on the end table and snapped on his goggles before striding into the kitchen. Despite an irritating tingling in his nose, Walter managed to hold in his sneeze until he was alone in the hallway and pretending to examine the rip in his pants. It really did irritate him that they had ripped, but he could fix them in the ship. He folded up the tissue twice before putting it back into his garbage pocket, underneath a crumpled hot dog wrapper and an old envelope, before following Daniel into the kitchen.

"Here," Daniel said, seemingly from nowhere. Walter had to look around for a moment before he saw Daniel on his knees digging in a cabinet under one of the counters. "I have a sewing kit in here somewhere. I saw that rip in your pants. What was that, by the way, in the hallway?" With a grunt, Daniel used the cabinet as leverage to stumble to his feet and held out the kit. Walter peeked inside before accepting it – just the right shade of purple. He really did always think of everything.

"Thank you. What was what?"

"I could have sworn I heard you sneeze." He shrugged, gesturing to the tissue box sitting on top of the fridge. Walter shook his head. That was the last thing he needed – at heart, Daniel was a worrywart, and if he knew Walter was catching a cold… well. At best, he would refuse to take Archie out, and at worst, he could imagine himself to a chair and force-fed soup. Definitely a situation he wanted to avoid.

"I'm fine. Thank you." To his surprise, Daniel merely nodded and started downstairs to the basement, not even giving him a second glance – apparently, he was believed, which was shocking in itself. Making sure there was no chance of being caught, Walter stood on his toes to pull a few tissues and stuffed them in his pockets as he walked downstairs. There was no shame in being prepared, and having a few tissues on hand might prevent a few uncomfortable situations. He didn't really want to ruin his leather gloves – they never came cheap.

Daniel prattled meaninglessly as he steered Archie out of the basement and into the sky, emerging beautifully in a mist of fog and air pollution that was almost impossible to enjoy through the violent pounding of another headache. He really wished he could tell Daniel to shut up, but that was at the risk of hurting his feelings (something that he never really minded doing, but it led to sulking and pouts and was really better avoided), so he sat quietly and tried not to think about it. Instead, he focused on how abnormally _cold_ Archie was, and how grateful he was to have his coat when all Nite Owl had was spandex and a cape. However, despite his disadvantage, Daniel hardly seemed to be cold in the least, while Walter was clenching his teeth with the effort of keeping the shivers in.

"…was watching the news earlier, and the only interesting thing they had to say was that the Raiders beat the Packers for the Super Bowl. They haven't said a word about how we captured that mobster and sent him packing last Tuesday…"

Deep breaths, in and out, teeth clenched, he did _not_ have a headache, and he was _not_ cold…

"…been catching wind of some rumors circulating around about this new gang in Queens…"

Concentrating so hard on specifics like _no_ headache and _not_ cold ultimately meant that something had to slip through; he could feel it building in his chest to the point where it just would not leave him alone, and he had to do something…

Walter only had time to take a quick breath before the cough shot out. It almost hurt physically; he felt as though his lungs were shriveling up and he couldn't pause long enough to breathe again. The hand that wasn't covering his mouth shot to his chest, clutching at the area around his heart almost in fear of it giving out from the violence of his cough. It echoed around Archie's hull eerily, coming back to him twofold, and when it finally stopped, he could still hear it – it did not sound good. Nite Owl lifted up his goggles to stare at him, eyes full of concern and a steely something he recognized all too well.

"That was not a normal cough." He sighed. So it began – there would be no end of this now.

"It was nothing, Daniel."

"Rorschach –"

"Leave it."

"I'm trying to make you admit that you have a problem." Walter lifted up his mask and wiped his lips with a handkerchief. His body ached, as though coughing had set off a new slew of complaints, and his headache was making it very hard to deal with this in a sensible way. Part of him just wanted to go home, and the other part wanted to go down _now_ and fight away his troubles. It worked every other night – it should do the same job. He folded his arms and stared out the window.

"I do not have a problem." To his chagrin, Daniel pulled Archie to a stop. They were still too high for anyone to really see them, but he put on the smoke screen anyway.

"Yes, you _do_, you're sick. I can tell." With a bit of a creak and a grunt, Daniel hoisted to his feet and came a few steps closer to prove his point. Walter felt like sinking back into the chair. "Your nose is all red, you seem clammy, I swear that I saw you shiver, and you're obviously dead tired. Plus, that cough was bad news – you need medicine."

"I'm fine."

"Like hell you – oh, man, Rorschach." With that, he seemed to make up his mind. Daniel threw himself back into the pilot's chair, and Walter felt his hopes raise for a moment before they came crashing down again. He turned Archie around. "I'm taking you home."

"Don't know where I live. Can't take me home," he said quickly, praying that Daniel would just drop him off and hope he went home.

"My home."

No such luck.

They argued the whole way back to Daniel's, back and forth proclamations of perfect health and varying degrees of "You're fine, my ass." It was one thing to admit defeat, stay home from work for a day, and wait it out under a blanket with a cup of what he pretended was good coffee, but Walter refused to be cosseted. He didn't need someone fussing over him, hadn't needed it since he was a boy, and was perfectly capable of taking care of himself, a phrase that Daniel was probably unfamiliar with. He was practically dragged out of Archie, struggling to get away all the while (but he wasn't really trying; in this state Daniel was faster and quite a bit stronger and could overpower him quickly if need be). Shoved into the living room, Walter eyed the windows carefully in hopes of planning an escape route while Daniel fiddled with the thermostat.

Finally, cowl and cape abandoned somewhere else and glasses perched sternly on his nose, Daniel turned and put his hands on his hips in a faint womanly manner. The thought would have amused him at any other time, but right now, it only made clear that he was not going anywhere soon. "All right, Rorschach. Give me your coat."

Walter crossed his arms over his chest, more to prevent him from coming over and ripping it off than out of defiance. "No. I'm leaving."

"I'm going to give you a pair of my pajamas. You're staying the night. Give it to me." Walter started, almost jumping back a step and studying the seriousness in Daniel's face. Stay the night – that was a breach of his security, the careful lines he had drawn between Just Partners and a dangerous familiarity. He could count on one hand the times he'd been in the upper part of Daniel's house, tonight not included, and… sleeping in… no. It was an imposition, an intrusion of privacy, and not just his. He would not do it. He'd run for it, if he had to.

"No."

Daniel held out his hand and frowned deeper than ever. The next minute, he'd probably find himself tied to a chair. "Just give me the goddamn coat, Rorschach! That's it!" They stared at each other for a moment, sizing one another up, and seemed to reach stalemate. He was beginning to think about giving in (it would be so much less exhausting to just go with it)… and then Daniel's shoulders sagged ever so slightly. "…Fine," he said bitterly, huffing. "I hope you're uncomfortable. Use this." Grabbing a quilt off an armchair, he tossed it at Walter and was obviously dismayed when Walter tossed it back.

"Don't need a blanket," he said, covering up a sneeze with one of the tissues he took. The quilt came hurtling back and hit him square in the face. By the time he had pulled it off, Daniel was half out the door and paused to talk over his shoulder.

"Yes, you do. I'm going to go make some soup or something and see if I have any cough medicine. I swear, Rorschach, if you budge an inch I'll… I'll… hit you," he said uncertainly, looking uncomfortable with even the thought. "Even if you are sick."

Walter couldn't keep his mouth from moving. "Can still hit back."  
Daniel threw his hands in the air in the universal gesture of defeat. "Jesus, Rorschach, just take a nap or something. I'll be back." With that, he bustled down the hallway and in a minute, clanking sounds drifted from the kitchen. For a moment, Walter really considered escaping through one of the windows, or even just walking out the front door, although it was a little more conspicuous. It would be so much easier than dealing with Daniel's tantrum, and he could get the night over with. Even as he thought about this, he slowly sat down on the couch and draped the quilt over his knees. Daniel _had_ promised he would hit him if he moved, and he didn't doubt that he would follow through, and it felt good to relax for even a minute… but just a minute. He would leave soon. He had to.

Time suspiciously jumped ahead, and though he would swear he never fell asleep, when he glanced up he saw Daniel holding a thermos and a cup. He took the thermos without complaint, assuring Daniel that once he'd finished he would be on his way, and Daniel sat in the armchair with a thoughtful expression. It really _was_ good soup, some flavor he'd never had before; half of it was gone before he'd even thought about it. At some point, he must have asked about it, because after stirring his drink with a spoon Daniel answered.

"It's tomato. Usually chicken soup is what you give people who're sick, but I was out of that." Walter nodded and made it a point to drink it slowly, letting it warm his body in stages and ebb his headache away. Daniel watched him for a moment. "I worry about you, you know. Sick people freak me out anyway, but if you… you know…"

"Yes?" He seemed to fight to find the right words for a moment, gesticulating vaguely and almost knocking his cup over.

"What if you got pneumonia or something and died? I'd never know about it. I don't need, you know, your address or name or mother's maiden name or shit like that, I just want to know you're all right. Can't you just oblige me that?"

Walter thought about it for a moment, swirling the soup around in the thermos absent-mindedly. When he looked at it that way, he supposed his partner's rampant mothering made sense. He would never – could never – tell Daniel his name, or where he lived, because Walter was nothing to be proud of, but… yes. He could oblige him this. Just this once. Never again.

"Don't need pajamas." Daniel jumped, looking up from his cup with wide eyes. Walter stared down at the thermos. "I'll be fine without them."

It was a whole other battle with where he slept, Daniel arguing in favor of the guest bedroom _not_ currently serving as storage, Walter in favor of the couch where he sat, but in the end Daniel was simply pleased that he was staying after all and gave in. He promised not to touch the coat, which was draped over the back of the couch, and ran back and forth to get that cough medicine, a glass of water, extra blankets, a warm set of pajamas "in case he changed his mind," and finally a book before Walter gently demanded to be left alone.

It was a weird experience, watching Daniel turn out the light and back out into the hallway, shutting the door behind him. He was vaguely reminded of childhood fantasies about his father, taking care of him and tucking him into bed before turning out the light. His memories were hazy (that might have been the cough medicine), but he could swear that he remembered his mother doing the same, once or twice, though it sickened him to think of her. In the end, if he were to be honest, he didn't mind being fussed over, so long as it was Daniel and it didn't happen often. It really… his muscles were so relaxed, like he was melting into the couch… it really wasn't… he felt so warm, so comfortable, even with his nose stuffed up and somehow running at the same time, and _oh_, he'd forgotten about his pants, that needed to be fixed… he'd do it tomorrow…

It really wasn't so bad.

**AN: To clear this up right away, I mentioned that the Raiders won the Super Bowl, but I'm not good with sports and hadn't realized that the Raiders just might have won a different Super Bowl than I intended. This story takes place January-ish, 1968, not 1976 (which is the first Super Bowl the Raiders ever won and is impossible in this particular chapter). Secondly, I realize that when Walter put on the mask, I probably could have started calling him "Rorschach," but that would have been an uncomfortable transition and I like to think that because he's sick he couldn't really get into the whole Rorschach personality all the way.**

**That said, poor Walter. Three chapters of him in a row - I wish I wasn't so used to putting him through uncomfortable situations. I know there are other stories where Rorschach becomes ill or whatever and Dan takes care of him, but I thought I might put my own personal spin on this by making it from his POV and making him fight it all the way (or most of the way, anyway). The tough thing about writing for this fandom is that by now, many of the good ideas have been taken. ;)**

**Good Lord - only 5 chapters to go, one of which is written and one of which is half-written. I'm actually going to finish something.**


	11. Center

Center

"_A point, place, person, etc., upon which interest, emotion, etc. focuses."_

His nose still ached, even a week after… their unfortunate incident.

Dan felt like an idiot, but he couldn't refer to it as anything else – the _incident_, the _accident_ – it was impossible to put it to words that weren't euphemistic. Only at the deepest points of self-loathing, when it was four in the morning and Dan sat at his kitchen table with a lukewarm cup of black coffee and another cup brimming with sugar, could he say it. With the darkness as his witness, he could put his head in his hands and say that it _wasn't_ an accident.

Rorschach killed a gang of boys, most of them with a wrench. Yes, he had lost himself in the blindness of rage and something Dan thought he'd never understand, but it was the furthest thing from a mistake. Even after Dan pointed at the bodies, practically shrieked at him and told him that those were his fault, he had been more concerned with the broken goggles than anything else. The goddamn _goggles_… Dan had those fixed in two days. Two days of sitting in his basement, trying to ignore the throb of his head and keep himself from glancing toward the tunnel.

The goggles were fixed. His nose wasn't broken (or at least, he thought not). The mark on his forehead faded until it was barely more than a dull blemish. It had been a week.

But Rorschach never came back.

The night after he fixed his goggles, Dan suited up as if it had been any other night and waited for three hours by Archie until he clued in that Rorschach was not coming. He had tried patrolling on his own, but it was practically disastrous. Distracted and feeling like he was missing his right arm (although his left would have been more appropriate), on one of the first cases of the night some punk kid had been able to nail him hard in the groin. It hadn't hurt thanks to his cup, but it had pissed him off enough that he didn't bother trying to incapacitate the kid – he just dropkicked him into the Hudson. Angry, tired, and more than a little upset with himself, Dan hopped back into Archie, flew straight home, tore off the costume, and jumped into bed, spending the next few hours staring at the ceiling.

He didn't go out again after that.

Instead, he pretended to make himself busy every night, designing new gadgets or shuffling boxes around so he could imagine he was cleaning his basement. He even stopped by the library the other day, picked up a new book off the "Recommended Reading" list, and didn't touch it again after setting it down in the living room. Dan even sat down in front of the television some nights, something he usually reserved for when the nightly news was on, and stared blankly at the screen until the broadcast went dead.

Inevitably, however, each night at about midnight he'd end up in the kitchen, and each morning at about eight, he would wake up with his face plastered to the table and a freezing mug of untouched coffee in his grip to match the one across the table.

Tonight was no different. After changing into his pajamas and a failed attempt to force himself into bed, Dan found himself shuffling onto the tile and reaching for the mugs. He set up the coffee maker, left one of the mugs on the counter, and sank down into a chair with a heavy sigh to stare at the other one. A whole week of this – sitting up all night for no reason, wasting his coffee and his sugar cubes on a partner that might never come back. It was ridiculous, juvenile even performing this ritual every night. It wasn't going to bring Rorschach back. Nothing probably would.

"I shouted at him," Dan said, turning his coffee mug full circle. A pattern of tacky, multi-colored owls covered it – a joke from his mother, many years ago, trying to say she was proud of him. "I should know better than to push it like that."

He should. For all the years they'd been partners, by now he should have known the golden rule: Rorschach did not like to be touched. He hated affection, and he hated threats. When confronted with affection, he would usually just shy away, but sometimes both would have his fist in your face before you could blink.

"It was my fault," he continued, speaking directly to the mug now. The cartoonish owls' eyes looked up at him, absorbing everything he had to say. "I pushed him to hit me. I was shouting…"

He didn't know everything about Rorschach, far from it, but he knew him enough. Dan knew him enough that a grunt could be a soliloquy, and that a jerk could be an almost frightened flinch, but he _ran_, flat out ran away after punching Dan in the nose. What was that saying? What was it saying about what Dan had done – yelled at him, accused him mercilessly until Rorschach had no choice but to get out of there as fast as possible?

The mug didn't look understanding anymore – instead, the beady eyes were accusatory. Your fault, they echoed, your fault he's gone, your fault he's not coming back.

Dan could handle hating himself, could understand his depressed, self-depreciative mood, but hell if he was going to take it from a cup. Coolly, incapable of feeling angry at anything other than himself, he flicked his wrist and sent the owls tumbling to the ground. The shatter was almost satisfying, for a moment, before Dan sighed and carefully got to his feet.

Sweeping up shards with a hand brush, knees aching against the tile, Dan felt a surprising lack of regret for destroying the mug. It seemed almost infinitesimal, a random collection of ceramic, as opposed to the mess he'd obviously made of his life. He was only mildly disappointed that he couldn't just sit there and leave it broken. Why was he always in such a hurry to pick up the pieces?

"Shit," he said dispassionately, more to hear the word aloud than for emphasis. Forget the coffee. He'd toss out the mug, dump the half-made coffee down the sink, and just go to bed. Lying alone and full of self-pity was no different from sitting in the kitchen with the same emotions. Pulling a resilient, minuscule owl's wing out from where it had stuck in his finger, Dan picked up the dustpan and wiped the blood on his shirt.

He froze, probably looking quite ridiculous in his bright blue pajamas with new streaks of thin crimson along the breast pocket, and stared in what felt like emotional nothingness at Rorschach. His partner stood in the doorway down to the basement, leaning up against the frame and his arms folded in on his chest. It was hard to tell whether he looked accusatory, defiant, or even frightened… it had been a week, after all, and a week was just long enough to forget some of Rorschach's social quirks.

"Hi," Dan said to break the silence, drawing out both letters long enough to express his confusion. Rorschach grunted, and Dan couldn't tell what it meant. "Need something?"

"Heard something break. Came to investigate. I see it was nothing." For a moment, Dan debated whether he should bring up the obvious, but when several long seconds had passed and nothing happened, he decided it was all right.

"So," he ventured, scratching the back of his head. "What were you doing in my basement?" Rorschach flinched, just barely, and turned his head down towards the floor. Suddenly, Dan remembered the dustpan in his hand. He fumbled his way to the garbage can, almost tripping over his feet while Rorschach watched with scientific detachment.

"Checking in," he said slowly, tilting his head to the left. Shards broke into even smaller pieces as they hit the bottom of the trashcan, and the dustpan went back under the sink. Dan would have to run a vacuum through here later, make sure he had gotten up all the pieces. For now, he would just be careful of where he stepped.

"Oh?"

"Making sure you are… well." Dan's nose ached, all of a sudden, as though perfectly aware Rorschach was alluding to it. When he turned to look at Rorschach again, he could feel his partner's gaze on his forehead. He smiled sadly.

"I'm fine, Rorschach. How, er… how are you?"

Rorschach jumped again, just a little. His body language seemed to be torn between coming further inside and bolting down the stairs again, as though he really did not want to be here. It killed Dan, and simultaneously pissed him off. If he didn't want to be here, why did he come in the first place? Why would he make himself come and visit Dan if he hated even being in the same room as him?

Rorschach moved a few steps toward the refrigerator, busying himself with examining the magnets and photos on the door. Even before he answered, Dan knew Rorschach was going to avoid the question. "Saw you repaired goggles. Good to see damage wasn't extensive," he said, reaching out to adjust a crooked, tacky souvenir magnet from Jersey.

"Not really. It was just a cracked lens. The infrared isn't really working, though, not yet." Dan glanced over at the coffee maker, having forgotten to turn it off, and sighed when the light that announced its completion came on. "That's not what you came about, though, is it? Coffee?"

Rorschach watched as Dan took out another mug. By now, he did feel a little guilty about smashing his mother's gift, but what could he do? It wasn't as though he could glue the pieces back together, and it really was his fault for throwing a tantrum like that.

It brought Rorschach upstairs, he realized, setting the new cup down on the counter and reaching for the other still on the kitchen table. Maybe that made it worth it.

"No." Dan raised an eyebrow; he had no idea what Rorschach was answering. He waved a hand in the direction of the counter. "No coffee. Saw what I needed to see. Can leave in peace now." With that, he turned on his heel and stalked back toward the stairs, looking defeated. It felt rather… anticlimactic. He was just going to leave? What if he really did never come back this time?

Trying to squash the desperation in his chest, unbidden and somewhat irritating, Dan turned back to the coffee machine and decided to take a leap of faith.

"It healed pretty quickly," he said, keeping one eye on Rorschach as he poured. "You… the wrench hit more of the goggles than my face." Rorschach put his hand on the door's frame and turned to glance over his shoulder. It was enough. "…I'm not mad at you, man. Really. I'm not. I kind of missed you, actually."

He shuddered. "Shouldn't. No reason to miss me."

"But I did." Dan turned back around, trying to look less serious than he felt. He slid one across the table, next to the container of sugar cubes, and leaned up against the counter with the other. "We're partners, Rorschach, and that means taking the good with the bad and continuing just the same." His partner seemed to eye the coffee mug suspiciously, as though wondering whether it was a lure into a trap. Dan glanced down into his cup. The steam brushed his face and fogged up his glasses. "I'm not excusing what you did. But I'm entirely capable of taking your good with your bad, even if the bad seems to have gotten a little worse over the years."

"Came up here to say goodbye," Rorschach said suddenly, fists clenching and unclenching. "You deserve a better partner than myself."

"That's absolute bullshit."

_Bullshit._

The word slapped them both in the face, but this time, Dan didn't give it time to register. He looked up and stared Rorschach right in the face, in his eyes – he could feel him staring back. "You know we work best together. Who could I work with? Everyone else is gone or quit a long time ago. You're all I've got, and I wouldn't have it any other way." In the silence that followed, he took a hasty swig of bitter coffee – where did all that come from? He meant it, he really did, but he'd never thought about it that way before. Not once.

Rorschach seemed to be thinking along the same lines. Dan saw what must have been an Adam's apple bob up and down under the mask, and it pulled in a little around his lips. "Must be joking," he said, more to himself than to Dan. "After… after I… no. Won't risk such a mistake again. Find another partner."

"No."

"Daniel –"

"I said no." He set down the mug and took a few steps closer around the table, knowing the fight-or-flight urge was flooding through Rorschach's body. He remembered perfectly what happened last time – he still had the throb in his nose to remind him – but this time he had resolved himself. Even if Rorschach struck out, even if he attempted to leave and never come back again, Dan was not going to let him go. Not this time. "You're my partner. Whatever it is that made you… well, we'll get through it together. As a team."

So close to him, barely four feet away, Dan had to wonder if Rorschach was trembling. He could hear leather straining from how tight Rorschach's fists were, and his head seemed almost squashed into his chest. "Hurt you, Daniel. Sorry."

"Don't be. After all, it would have hurt me more in the long run if you'd just disappeared." Rorschach's shoulders shook; a wobbly, stifled choking echoed out from beneath the mask; and before Dan quite understood what happened, he took another step forward and pulled his partner into a hug. Rorschach gasped, choked again, and pulled back sharply as if he meant to jerk away – but he didn't. He stood there, clenching his fists and stiff as a board, as though he didn't know how to react to such a breach of his personal space. Dan could smell blood, a lot of it – it overpowered the other odors he had become accustomed to, but he held on.

And Rorschach let him.

Everyone needs a hug at some point, Dan reasoned as he relaxed his grip a little. He still remembered the way he used to feel when his mother would catch him in an embrace, when he was feeling sorry for himself or lonely, and how all the bad feelings seemed to melt away. He remembered what it felt like to unburden, to let someone else carry you instead of fighting so desperately to stay standing all on your own… If anything, that was what Rorschach needed – someone he could rely on. Someone who cared about him no matter what happened. Someone who missed him when he was gone.

He could do that. No, better - he _would_.

With a sigh, he let him go and took a step back. Rorschach immediately stood up straight. The weight of his sorrow and guilt had not ceased to exist, though it seemed a bit lighter, but his pride refused anything other than a rim rod spine. It was nothing less than what he expected.

"Will see, before long," Rorschach said, stuffing his hands in his pockets. "Am far too dangerous to be around. Will probably regret this later." Dan shrugged.

"I doubt it."

Rorschach hummed quietly and turned to go. "Will be back tomorrow, at regular time. Be ready, Daniel." His steps echoed up the basement stairs until they faded away, too far down the tunnel to hear anymore. Dan sat down at his kitchen table, examining his hands as though the skin held some kind of secret. The coffee Rorschach left untouched turned cold, but the sugar cube container's lid hung open and an abandoned wrapper sat beside it.

"…I will," he said, far too late, but it was all right. They would see each other in a few hours.

**AN: I haven't checked, but it has probably been a month again, hasn't it? I'm sorry. As some of you know, I'm a senior in high school this year, and I have absolutely no time to do anything other than school. Even now I have both Japanese and math I could be doing, but I put it off to give you guys what I have been holding back on for a very long time. Originally, this was going to be the chapter before last, but since I had it finished and really, it could go anywhere, I decided to just get it over with. :)**

**This chapter is a continuation of the chapter where Rorschach goes nuts and smacks Dan with a wrench by accident, as you may have gleamed by now. There will be one more chapter that indirectly links to that particular plot, but other than that, I expect to be bringing out mostly original story lines. We'll have to see, though.**

**As usual, thank you very much for your continued support and patience, because it means the world to me. :)**


	12. Overtone

Overtone

"_An additional, usually subsidiary and implicit meaning or quality."_

Part of him had forgotten everything, long ago. Of course, some vague memories remained that haunted him in the early hours of the morning, after he'd crawled into his decrepit apartment and just before he fell asleep. His sleep was usually dreamless, too, a blank emptiness that passed by without remark, but sometimes, that changed. Sometimes, he would wake up again with the unfamiliar feeling of unease. His rational mind had no problem squaring that away as indigestion from whatever swill he had forced down his throat the last time he ate, or complaints from a protesting body he had worked beyond its capacity, but it was still there. Logic couldn't get rid of it. All he could do was wait for nightfall, when everything buried underneath his true face was washed away in justice and blood.

Still, he had to do something with himself during the day, so after a few wasted months of aimlessly wandering the city in his disguise, he made his first sign. After all, he saw what was coming – he knew that before long, the city would drown in its filth and there would be no one left to save it. Why not let everyone know now, give fair warning to the few people still good enough to be worthy of rescue? Of course, with the sign came the obligation to display it. At first, he spent less than an hour a day parading the street with his decree, convincing himself he had better things to do with his time. As weeks passed, however, whatever money he salvaged from dead scum's pockets stopped being enough to pay his exorbitant rent, and the less time spent within those constricting four walls, the better. At least on the streets, sin was masked by a thin layer of smog and the noise of traffic. In his apartment, there was no escape from screaming woman, crying children, and noisy thumps as bodies hit the floor.

Yes… he tended to prefer being outside.

He usually stuck to the same streets while out in his disguise. They were routine, familiar, something he could move to the back of his mind while he entertained much more valuable thoughts. Despite his disinterest, after a few days he found himself recognizing some faces: the same crowd of Knot Tops every day (he never found them after night fell, and he couldn't leap on them in broad daylight, best to bide his time), two men and three women who ate at the Gunga Diner every day, a young girl making the perilous walk home from school by herself. Something in that little girl stirred up that unpleasant feeling, tightened his throat, and to ease the pounding in his head, some days he followed her home. She never took this well, looked over her shoulder at him as if she expected him to attack her at any minute. He didn't mind. It made her walk faster.

All this became standard procedure – he spent afternoons displaying his message across the same areas of the city, and his nights cleaning up the murderers and whores who hadn't believed him.

One afternoon, he stood at the edge of a street corner, his knuckles white from throttling his sign. At the end of the night, he'd stood on a rooftop and watched the sun rise, shaking from head to toe with the adrenaline that came with smashing someone's head against a wall and watching him bleed out into the dirt. Too keyed up to even try sleeping, he had slipped into his apartment long enough to put on his disguise, grab the sign, and head out again. By now, his body was doing its best to feel exhausted, but he refused to let something so trivial as comfort win out over doing his duty.

People passed by and stared at him openly, frowning at his tattered clothes, his smell, the bags he could feel hanging under his eyes. He didn't care. It was all part of the disguise. He would shed it again within a few hours.

The crosswalk sign across the street changed to flash the little white man, and around him, a sea of people began to come and go. He looked straight ahead, staring blindly at the oncoming traffic and letting his mind go blank. Just a few more hours until twilight, when he could sneak off to the alley, retrieve his second-best suit, and become what he was meant to be.

He did not realize he had been staring at someone until he was ten feet away. He did that often, locked onto someone's face subconsciously, only coming to when they eyed him suspiciously as they walked by. The man already looked uncomfortable, glanced away and pushed his glasses further up his hooked nose. Hunching his shoulders, he readjusted the Gunga take-out bag in the crook of his arm and nibbled on his lip a little, very obviously wishing that he would just turn his gaze away. Usually, he would have gone back to staring at nothing almost immediately, his eyes shifting over each person before settling at a point high above their heads. This person, however, held him captive, more with his discomfort than anything else. Feather strands of brown hair fell in his face, and then, for a brief second, their eyes met.

Brown. Light brown, like empty beer bottles sitting on the table next to cereal bowls, or a flying metal _bean_. Warm like handshakes at sunup, congratulatory and accepting.

Daniel.

It couldn't be Daniel. As soon as he could, he swallowed the horrible memories that flooded up and threatened to choke him, pushing the thought away. It could not be him. For one, he was too fat – his stomach swelled over his pants, and his face was too full, too round. For another, when had he ever seen that look of defeat on Daniel's face, in his posture? Never. The Nite Owl he knew never slouched, never gave up like this flabby failure obviously had…

But it was him. As he got closer, moving as if in slow motion along the crosswalk, he began to pick out specific details in his face. No one could ever mistake that beak-like nose or his chin, his most prominent features… Daniel. This was what happened to him.

Finally, Daniel reached his side of the street, still doing his best to ignore the piercing glare that refused to leave him. Tentatively, he stopped, looking down at his silent accuser, and they stared at each other for a moment, brown searching brown for something he couldn't put a name to. The moment broke when Daniel stuck his free hand into his pocket, pulled out a fistful of bills and change, and held it out between them expectantly, a look of strained goodness on his face.

"Hey, man," he said, in those same tones he would use when he was trying to be comforting and hadn't known what to say. Automatically, refusing to look away from Daniel's face, he stuck out his hand and let him drop the money, closing his fist tight against it. It had to be at least twenty dollars – a lot of money to have lying around in anyone's pocket. "Tough economy. I hope things, you know, get better."

With a weak smile and a last spineless shrug, Daniel sidestepped around him and moved off down the street. Before long, he was alone again, standing on a street corner, holding his sign in one hand and Daniel's money in the other.

Daniel.

Fat Daniel, with broken shoulders and a slumping spine, reduced to handing out money to strangers in a desperate effort to pretend he was still helping someone, still affecting New York in some small way.

Not Daniel.

He ignored how his head throbbed, how his chest hurt as if it were going to burst – he really needed to watch what he ate, couldn't eradicate sin if he was doubled over in pain – and shoved all of it back into whatever hidden place it had come from. All the smiles, the echoing laughter, all the protestations of partnership and two men believing they could change a city together. He put it back where he belonged.

Opening his fist, he let the wadded clump of money, given to him by someone who did not exist anymore, fall to the ground. It sat there, quivering in the breeze, as Rorschach walked away.

**Well. It's been right around a year – a year and three or four days. Can't say I don't owe you guys something, for waiting so long… and I guess "sorry" doesn't cut it? Still, I am sorry, I didn't intend to stay away for so long. This is going to be finished, though. I have all the words picked out, the ideas laid down. This will be finished.**

**I've set up a chronology for "Words" in terms of where everything fits in the Watchmen timeline – needless to say, this is after the Keene Act was passed, and the only chapter that will be. I promised myself I wasn't going to touch the Keene Act beyond a certain chapter, but a prompt from my writing exercise book just stuck with me… and this is what happened. It has been a year, so I'm a bit out of practice, and I loaned my copy of Watchmen to a friend – please forgive me for any mistakes I make with our boys. Correct them gently if you find any!**


	13. Stack

Stack

"_To arrange cards or a pack of cards so as to cheat."_

It was raining. Dan truly wished he'd brought an umbrella along, no matter how ridiculous and unwieldy it would have been. After hiking along more rooftops than he could count, trailing behind Rorschach as he picked a path to the abandoned greenhouse, he was every definition of the word "wet." Water squelched in his boots, his costume clung to him like a second skin (which was _very_ uncomfortable in certain areas), and his drenched hair poked at the back of his neck, itching something terrible. Worst of all, if he even opened his mouth for a second, Rorschach seemed to know, and would cut him off with a stiff, "Stop whining, Daniel." Being treated like a child infuriated him – how did Rorschach know what he was going to say? He'd barely said a word the entire night, and it was his right to complain if he wanted to!

Quietly seething, Dan paused as Rorschach held out a hand, pointing down and over the edge of the building. He leaned forward and nodded – the greenhouse's transparent glass was painfully obvious, reflecting the brooding clouds and each brief flash of lightning.

Suddenly, a sinking feeling attacked his stomach, and Dan frowned. "Uh, Rorschach," he said, holding up a hand. Rorschach quickly turned around and glared at him – or, at least, the mask's blots glared.

"Your costume will dry inside," he snapped, obviously fed up with each complaint Dan hadn't voiced and he'd somehow heard anyway. "Can't give up now."

"That's not what I'm saying!" he retorted, practically ready to give his smug partner a shove off the rooftop. Of course, he thought guiltily, he never really _would_ do it… sometimes it just seemed like an awfully good idea. "My question was," he said, taking a deep, calming breath, "how are we supposed to get down?" Rorschach snorted a bit, dug around in his coat, and produced what seemed to be a homemade grappling hook, complete with several extension cords tied together and looped around a dozen times. Dan gaped at him for a moment. _What_ he carried around sometimes… and it hadn't even made a bulge. Staring stupidly, he watched Rorschach drape the hook over the side of the building and give the rope a sharp tug. The results must have been satisfactory, because with a small nod, he let go of the extension cords.

"This will do," he said, watching it tumble down with his head tilted the slightest bit. Dan had to gulp when he heard the final "clink!" of the makeshift rope hit the glass, and he was suddenly overcome by a debilitating fear of heights – or, more specifically, falling from them.

"Er," Dan tried, feeling oddly nervous as Rorschach clambered down a bit, digging into the brick with his feet and fingers. "Are you sure that'll hold? The roof is wet."

"We'll find out." With that, Rorschach grabbed the cords and slid several feet, giving Dan a bigger start than he cared to admit. Time seemed to stand still as he shimmied his way down, each raindrop on Dan's shoulders like a hammer as he tried not to choke on his tongue. Finally, several stories and a few near-mishaps that left his poor heart pounding later, he could see Rorschach touch ground and heard him call up, voice muffled by distance, wind, and mask. "Come on."

_Oh, God._ Gingerly, Dan hefted himself around to dangle precariously, staring at the cords trapped between him and the building with a shifty eye. He didn't trust them at all, and yet how else was he supposed to get down? If only they could've taken Archie, but he couldn't fly in this goddamn weather, and they had to come here tonight. Otherwise, she might catch wind of them and move, and although he felt a bit like throwing up just thinking about her, he'd rather they got this over with.

Trying to recall climbing the rope in gym class a million years ago, Dan wrapped his legs around the cords, prayed briefly to whoever might have been listening, and grabbed the cord, squeezing his eyes shut against the horrible sensation of falling a few feet. Slowly, one hand after the other, he lowered himself, doing his best to feel comfortable with using a fake grappling hook, complete with a fake rope, to climb down a very, _very_ real building.

"You'll burn your legs, sliding down that way," Rorschach offered helpfully, sounding much closer than he had a few moments ago. Dan didn't dare open his eyes.

"Yeah, well, I'll deal with it," he replied, continuing his weird shuffle.

He felt his foot touch something solid, opened his eyes, and found himself dangling a little awkwardly about two inches away from the glass and two feet away from Rorschach, who was assuredly looking at him like he was crazy. Clearing his throat, he let go of the cords and brushed imaginary dust off his uniform. Rorschach snorted again.

"Interesting," he said, examining him like he would a piece of evidence, or… or a bug.

"I don't care what you say," Dan muttered, "I am never doing that again." Clenching his hands, he hoped they'd stop shaking in a minute – adrenaline was a real bitch.

"Won't have to," said Rorschach, turning away and bending down to peer through the glass roof. "It's not far. We'll jump."

Of course. Of _course_ they were going to jump. Rorschach was going to kill them both sometime.

Rorschach touched Dan's arm briefly, jerking away again when Dan looked down at the contact. Nodding, he pulled his laser pen out of his utility belt, crouching down and peering at the greenhouse below. Most of the plants were dead, left alone for many years, but here and there he saw a splash of exciting color – like directly below him, where once the glass he cut fell, it would be muffled and less likely to draw attention.

He pressed a button, and a quiet glow focused itself into the glass, burning a hole straight through. Moving his hand in a slow arc, his stomach flip-flopped as he realized how close they really were to doing this… to finding her. After this, he couldn't turn back – either they had to arrest her, or… Dan didn't want to think about any alternatives. They had to arrest her, turn her in to the police, and then maybe he could finally get her out of his mind. It wasn't right, after all, a costumed hero and a… whatever it was Rorschach called her. They had to put her away… but why did he feel so guilty about it?

"Getting cold feet?" Rorschach mumbled. Dan frowned, finished off the circle, and they watched as the glass plummeted and crashed into a wide planter, barely making a sound as it hit flowers and dirt.

"No."

"You're sure?" That imperious tone was back, and again Dan was tempted to shove Rorschach or punch him in the mouth, whatever would get him to stop acting so damn superior. Resisting it, he clenched his jaw and pocketed the laser pen.

"I'm fine, Rorschach."

"Not asking if you're fine. I'm asking if you can do this."

Dan blinked a moment, turned away, and was unbelievably grateful that the goggles hid his eyes. He couldn't possibly lie to Rorschach's face, but he could lie to himself.

"Sure. Let's go."

With that, he slipped through the hole and fell ten feet, side-stepping the moment when he'd really have to come to terms with what they were doing. The second his feet touched dirt, squashing a few browning plants, he flicked the setting on his goggles to infrared, searching for any heat signals that would betray a bodyguard. For now, there was nothing, just the quiet colors of plants slowly waving back and forth. He couldn't believe it would be this easy.

A crunch of glass and quiet "oof" meant Rorschach was next to him, and partly out of morbid curiosity, he turned to look at his partner and immediately regretted it. All he could see was a giant source of heat, drizzled with the traces of cold rain, and his mask… a swirl of hues, no longer black and white, and no longer separate – he could still see traces of where the mask had been a few seconds before, mixed together in a horrible carnival of colors. He shivered, turned his head, and quietly stepped down from the planter. Rorschach followed, his movements totally silent, and for a moment they simply took in their surroundings. Some of the flowers still seemed healthy, despite what had to have been years of neglect. It must have been a beautiful place, before the owners went bankrupt.

"Don't see why she's so paranoid."

Snapping into action, Rorschach grabbed Dan's cape and dragged him downward, ducking behind a huge, flowering bush. The voice came from their right – Dan swiveled and saw two huge men lumbering along. One had a long pipe, and the other had what looked like a gun in his waistband. Rorschach let go of Dan's cape, made a shushing motion, and slunk off in another direction. Naturally, he would have a plan, but he really wished he could him let in on it beforehand for once.

"Me either. The birdbrain and that freak aren't going to show up anytime soon. She fooled them too good."

They were heading his way, probably almost blind in the dark. Doing his best to stay silent, Dan took a few careful steps backward, ready to duck out of the way if he had to.

"Still," said one of the men, rubbing his arms, "I don't know why she picked this place. It's creepy."

Another heat form appeared behind them, hunched over and decorated with twisting colors. Very slowly, he crept up on them, closer and closer until it seemed like he was right on top of them. Dan didn't realize he was holding his breath until his chest hurt.

"Yeah. I wish we had a flashlight."

"I have one," Rorschach said, and smacked the man with the gun over the head with it. He howled in pain and fell to the ground, clutching his head, and the gun went skittering across the floor. Dan turned off the infrared (nothing could be more distracting than an array of colors assaulting his eyes) and leapt forward, crashing his fist into the pipe-wielding thug's stomach. The thug roared, took a wild swing, and missed, leaving Dan to spin around and kick him in the back, knocking him forward a few feet. Rorschach, he noticed briefly, was still grappling with his victim, leading with his left hand as he got in every punch he could.

"That's enough."

A new voice. Calm, cool, collected. Commanding. All four of them paused, turned toward the voice, and stared for a moment. Dan had to gulp, his heart pounding so fast it couldn't be healthy. She stood in a doorway, her arms folded across her chest, almost totally encased in skin-tight leather except for her legs. Her long red hair fell to the middle of her back, and she had a look on her face like she'd just won the lottery.

The Twilight Lady.

Never one to take orders, Rorschach slammed his fist in the man's face and let him drop, whirling to face her. Dan looked back at the man still lying on the ground, his face turned toward Twilight Lady with a frown of sheer stupidity. She jerked her head once, and he immediately scrambled to his feet and fled, his footsteps echoing all around them.

"Isn't this a surprise?" she purred, unfolding her arms and planting them against her hips. She had a riding crop in her hand, and she thumped it once against her thigh. "I wasn't really expecting company today. I didn't even have time to put on my makeup."

"You planned this," Rorschach growled, clenching his fists.

"Of course. You really think I'd leave valuable information lying around on purpose? I practically led you here." Twilight Lady laughed, a syrupy sound that almost made Dan sick. Rorschach's head twitched almost imperceptibly in his direction, and he swallowed the bile down. He would not let Rorschach think him weak.

"What could you possibly gain from bringing us here?" he snapped. She slowly turned to him, put a hand on her chin thoughtfully, and surveyed him – up and down, twice. He almost looked away, but what defiance he had left forced him to stare directly into her face the entire time, suppressing memories of… God, everything. It wasn't her beauty, he thought as she surveyed him, even though it certainly didn't hurt to look at her. She just had this aura of power, of control, something that drew him in like a moth to the light. No matter how he tried to shake her, to pry her fingers off his heart and disconnect them, she only seemed to tighten her grip and pull him in further. Finally, she looked back at his face, their eyes met through each other's masks (he cursed as his heart stuttered), and she smiled.

"Why, my little night bird. I just wanted a chance to see you again, even for a moment. It has been a while." She reached out a hand as if to touch his face, but Rorschach quickly thrust himself between them, practically growling. Dan blinked, feeling sluggish – as though in some sort of stupor – and Twilight Lady laughed again. "Of course, killing your friend is a definite bonus."

"It won't happen," Rorschach snarled.

"Oh, let's not be dramatic, Rorschach. I won't kill you – too messy, hard to cover up. No one will complain if I just rough you up enough to put you out of commission. How about we, let's say, snap your spine?"

Dan started. She was almost perfectly serious – she always had a hint of sarcasm in her tone, it was part of her nature, but he knew she meant most of what she said. He glanced over at Rorschach, and raised his fists in a reluctant battle stance. He truthfully didn't know how he could fight her, but if it came down to defending his partner's life… Assured, Rorschach snorted and sank into a crouch, ready to charge her at any given moment.

"Go ahead and try," he retorted, and in a split second they were on each other, kicking, punching, and evading, a flurry of hits going almost too fast to be seen one at a time. More than once, she slapped him with the riding crop, but he held his ground, going for any place that seemed vulnerable. After a few unsuccessful attempts to land a punch, he made a grab for her leg as she swung around to kick him and caught it. Grunting, he tried to lift her up and throw her, but all he did was knock her back a step. She laughed, shook her head, and he moved in again, staying at close range – too close for Dan to leap in and try anything. He had to wait, if he didn't want to get in Rorschach's way and throw them both off – at least, that's what he told himself.

Still, it killed him, watching his partner attack time after time with barely anything connecting. They seemed evenly matched, each blow deflected and returned for what seemed to be ages. Finally, Rorschach grabbed her arm and yanked, holding her in place as he punched her in the stomach. Dan winced, watched as she doubled over, but she glanced over at him and smiled – there was something victorious in it, and it put a chill in his chest.

"Really, now." In the blink of an eye, Twilight Lady slammed her body into Rorschach's, throwing him off-balance and knocking him down to the ground. She kicked him once on the side of the head, knocking off his hat and sending it flying.

"Rorschach!" Dan cried, taking a step forward. She ignored him, turned Rorschach over with one stiletto boot, and crouched down on top of him, pinning him with her weight and with more strength neither of them had known she possessed. He struggled, roaring with rage and trying his best to regain purchase, but he wasn't getting up – he couldn't.

"Whore!" Rorschach spat, unable to say anything else. Twilight Lady laughed, uproariously, breathless.

"Sticks and stones, dear," she whispered. He roared again, screaming with everything he had. It hurt to listen to it, to see him ground into the dust like this, but what could he possibly do? It felt like he couldn't move. How could he lift a hand against her?

"Nite Owl!" Rorschach bellowed, practically begging for help, for him to do something besides stand there like an idiot and watch this happen. Dan stepped forward again, perfectly aware they were both watching and waiting for him to do something, but his feet wouldn't go any farther. Rorschach turned his head away as best he could, and Dan felt his terrible disappointment as if he'd been stabbed in the chest.

Bile gathered at the back of his throat – he couldn't attack her, no matter how he wanted to, and he felt so sick and ashamed. Her chuckle only worsened the feeling, and desperately, he closed his eyes and dug down inside himself, frantically searching for that one spot somewhere inside him that she hadn't corrupted.

"That's the best part about all this," Twilight Lady said, loud enough for them both to hear. She slammed Rorschach's face into the ground again, held him down with her hand, and leaned forward to whisper into his ear. "He won't lift a finger to help you. He's _powerless_ against me. Isn't that right, night bird?"

Desperate, Dan scanned the room, his gaze passing over useless flowers and the still-unconscious body of the thug Rorschach had taken care of earlier. Anything, _anything_ that might help him end this without any more violence, get her to let his partner go and quietly surrender to the police, something that might give him the extra courage he lacked…

With a sudden, piercing clarity, his eyes locked on a gun, lying a few yards away. He remembered seeing it what seemed like years ago, tucked into the bodyguard's waistband, and briefly bit his lip. He knew what he had to do.

"What shall we do first?" Twilight Lady muttered, her attention wholly on Rorschach as she clinically studied him. Praying fast and silently to anyone who would listen, Dan made his way slowly over to the gun, picked it up, and steadily moved out of her line of vision. She didn't seem to notice, running her hand over his partner in a way that made him shriek bloody murder. He felt a twinge in his stomach, his resolve hardened, and he continued to slide his way toward them until he was right behind, close enough to touch her. "How about we take off this mask…?"

Nite Owl raised the gun, pointed it directly at the back of her head, and cocked it, making an audible click. Her voice petered out softly, and even Rorschach ceased struggling, his body instantly tensing up at the sound. Slowly, she turned around, looking back at him with a studiously blank face, but there was surprise written plainly in her eyes. They stared at each other, and with all the strength he possessed, he kept his arms perfectly steady.

"Let him go, Leslie."

She tried to pass it off as some kind of sick joke, her typical smile twisting up the corners of her mouth as she did her best to look winning and innocent. "Why, Nite Owl, you wouldn't! I thought–"

"If I have to, I will. Get off him."

Dropping the smile and the false persona, she stared at him, challenging him – but when he refused to point the gun away, she carefully stood and held up her hands in surrender. "Whatever you say, dear…" she said quietly, never taking her eyes off the gun. For a moment, Dan panicked, knew he couldn't do it if anything were to happen, but with a quick glance at Rorschach, still on the ground as if stunned, that feeling disappeared. He could and would pull the trigger, if Rorschach needed him too. What was more important, Leslie knew it too, and that would keep her from trying anything stupid.

Rorschach seemed to shake off whatever had held him to the ground, jumped to his feet, and took a few obvious, heaving breaths. There were dirt stains on his mask, brown mixed with black and white, and it broke Dan's heart so thoroughly that he knew nothing he ever did could fix what just happened. Still, he took one hand off the gun, reached into his utility belt, and pulled out a pair of handcuffs.

"You're under arrest, Leslie." He didn't say what for – he didn't need to, all three of them knew what she'd done: prostitution, drug distribution, typical vice queen behavior, but what stood out foremost in his mind was _assault_, and it kept him angry as he put the cuffs around her wrists. They clicked into place, secure enough to hang onto her until they could get the police here, and Dan finally breathed a sigh of relief. Twilight Lady kept her back to him, standing still and totally silent… but he could feel Rorschach's stare on him. Too nervous to stare back, try to analyze the mask blots and discern a meaning, he kept his focus on the gun. Quickly, his heart pounding, he uncocked the hammer, ejected the magazine, and tossed the gun away, his fingers trembling a bit when it left his hand. For a moment, he'd held life and death in his hands, unforgiving metal ready to kill anyone in its path – he never wanted to have that kind of power over anyone again.

The next half hour was a blur – he knew he'd called the police, because within ten minutes the glass greenhouse was alight with flashing blue-and-red sirens. Leslie had called to him, nonchalantly asking him to "wait for her," and he hadn't watched as they loaded her into the back of a car. As the officers raided closets and back rooms, searching for and finding drugs and half-filmed pornos, Dan and Rorschach slipped out the front door and into the night. The rain had long since stopped, leaving the air humid and with a biting chill. They hadn't spoken to each other at all, and now as they walked down the street, Dan couldn't help but feel as if he should say something. It took a few minutes, but in the end it was the smudges of dirt still on his mask that guilted him into talking.

"You all right?" he asked gently, not knowing what sort of answer he expected, or what he wanted.

"Fine," Rorschach snapped, the syllable clipped and frigid. Dan blinked once, fought for words, and pressed on tentatively.

"Listen… I didn't mean for…" Rorschach stopped, turned to face him, and stared, the blots barely moving. "I mean, Rorschach, I –"

"Forget it."

There was anger in his voice… no, anger wasn't the right word for it. He sounded _furious_, barely repressing the animosity creeping into his voice. Rorschach turned on his heel and started to walk away and suddenly, Dan felt it, too.

"Hey – hey! You don't get to act like that, Rorschach!" he shouted, following him closely. Reaching out, he grabbed his arm, yanking him back around. After all that obviously unwanted contact from Twilight Lady, he knew Rorschach wouldn't be very responsive to any kind of touch, but he only felt a small twinge of guilt when he jerked his arm away and stepped backwards, almost in a panic. "Don't forget," he continued, pointing a finger at him, "that I'm the one who saved your ass back there!"

"You almost didn't." This time, his voice was totally emotionless, and the full weight of Dan's sins came crashing down onto his shoulders. Before he could say anything or even move an inch, Rorschach turned away again and walked off down the street without a goodbye.

This time, Dan let him go.

**AN: I will not lie – I know absolutely nothing about guns, or greenhouses, so I apologize for any incongruities or for infuriating any gun-experts and so on. I'm also going to admit that fight scenes are in no way my strong point, especially fight scenes that don't involve my POV character, but it was very important to have Dan simply be a spectator. If you have any suggestions on things to fix or mistakes you saw, please let me know, and I'll do my best to fix them. Also, slightly unrelated, in terms of "Words," it was a few months after this that Dan made Rorschach a grappling gun and presented it to him, as a way of sort of saying he was sorry. Fun little trivia. :)**

**Everything we know about Dan's relationship with Leslie comes from what little the graphic novel says about her, speculation, and "The End Is Nigh" video game. I watched a lot of walkthroughs and clips revolving around that, especially the parts with Twilight Lady, and I have to say that I don't agree with most of it. I always imagined Rorschach and Nite Owl taking down Twilight Lady together both times, and I don't believe Dan would purposefully toss his partner into broken glass and let him fall, even to save her. That's part of why I wrote this the way I did – Dan doesn't know what to do with himself; he feels strongly for Leslie, but he doesn't want to leave his partner hanging, and in the end he chooses what's more important. That's part of the reason why I didn't really like the Nite Owl ending of "TEIS" (or the Rorschach one, but you know)… maybe one day I'll write what I see as really happing, but it's not going to be put into Words. Either way, I apologize for the digression, and I hope you enjoyed. :)**


	14. Familiarity

Familiarity

"_Freedom of behavior justified only by the closest relationship; undue intimacy."_

_The year of their happiness ended with Arthur's return – and almost immediately collapsed in ruin, but not on account of the King. The evening after his home-coming, while he was still giving them details of the defeat of Claudas as they happened to come into his memory, there was a disturbance at the Porter's Lodge, and Sir Bors was ushered into the Great Hall at dinner. He had some news for Lancelot, which he told him in a whisper after dinner – but unfortunately he was a misogynist, and like most people of that sort, he had the female failing of indiscretion._

Dan curled his hand a little bit tighter around his mug, wafting the heavenly smell of hot cocoa under his nose as he continued to read. His legs shifted under the plaid blanket draped over his lap, and he took a quick sip. He knew what was going to happen, of course; he'd read this book a thousand times. Still, there was so much tension in Lancelot and Guinevere's love affair that he couldn't help but follow along avidly, reacting to each plot twist as if it were new.

His nose felt frozen, and when he absently put a hand to it, he found his fingers were even colder. Outside, it was snowing, the first snowfall of the year. The sun had long since set, taking with it the children, squealing as the flakes touched their faces, and the lovers, kissing beneath lampposts. Normally, by now he would expect Rorschach, but in light of Hanukkah coming to a close and the encroaching threat of "Christmas spirit," they'd agreed to take one night off. Rorschach hadn't been too keen on it, saying, "Justice never rests," and insinuating he was being a sissy "just because of the _cold_," but after six months straight of spending every night cavorting around the city… Hell, they both needed a break.

The fire crackled distantly, bathing the room in a quiet glow. For a moment, he glanced out his window and watched the snow drift gracefully down. So beautiful – he truly loved New York in this season, more than anything. There was something so comforting about seeing Central Park covered in snow, or watching the Rockefeller Christmas tree go up.

With a sigh of contentment, he took another sip of his hot cocoa and went back to the book.

_"So this," said Guenever, when she next saw her lover alone, "so this is why you lost your miracles. It was all lies about your giving them to me."_

_ "What do you mean?"_

Something below him made a significantly loud thunking noise – Dan jumped a bit, stared down at the floor, and waited for it to repeat itself – nothing. "Huh," he said to himself, setting down the mug. It must have been the heater – his old brownstone tended to clank around, once it got colder.

"_Jenny, I wanted to tell you, but it was too difficult to explain."_

_ "I can understand the difficulty."_

_ "It is not what you think."_

"Indecent."

Dan yelped, jumped off the chair, and sent everything scattering in every which direction – the blanket tangled around his legs, the book flew across the room, and he just barely saved the full mug before it fell to the ground. Grunting, he hopped around in a circle until he and the intruder were face to face. Still bent over the chair a bit as though he had been frozen to the spot, Rorschach stared at him from behind the mask.

"Evening, Daniel," he said simply, as though he hadn't nearly given his partner a heart attack. Dan cursed under his breath, bent down, and detangled his feet, trying to keep his face blank. After all, their plan was to spend the evening relaxing, and for him, that usually meant _alone. _He hated spending his free time talking about criminals, whores, and the deteriorating state of morality – which were, of course, Rorschach's favorite things to discuss. Still, at seeing his partner's head tilted just the slightest bit to the left in his "curious" expression, he couldn't keep a small smile from tugging at his lips. He didn't want to give too much emotion away on either side, after all.

"Jesus, Rorschach," he said, deciding it was safe enough. Slowly, he folded up the blanket and set it back down on the chair. "Did you really have to sneak up on me like that?"

Rorschach shrugged. Typical noncommittal answer, meaning both "I suppose not, sorry about that," and "Your own fault for not paying attention." Dan sighed, shook his head, and went to fetch his book, gently folding the bent cover back into place. He felt Rorschach's eyes on him the entire time, a subtle scrutiny he'd pretty much grown used to over the years. Ignoring it, Dan put the book down on the end table next to his hot cocoa, ran a hand through his hair, and tried to re-gather his thoughts.

"Were you reading over my shoulder?" he asked finally, not really knowing what else to say. While Rorschach considered him, he curled his bare toes against the carpet. God, his feet were freezing now – he'd need a pair of socks before long, without that blanket.

"For a moment," Rorschach replied, the closest he would ever get to a confession. He folded his arms and leaned against the back of the chair, tilting his head again to look down at the book. "You seemed interested."

"I was. I am," Dan quickly remedied, rubbing the back of his head again. As per usual, his partner's sudden arrival had totally distracted him from being a good host, and if there was anything Rorschach appreciated, it was politeness. "Do you want anything? Coffee, dinner? I have some leftovers from the Gunga Diner…" He had already taken a step toward the hallway, knowing he was probably going to have to pull out the can opener and serve up another tin of beans up cold, but Rorschach shook his head and gestured toward Dan's mug.

"What do you have in that?"

"Er… hot cocoa. I can get you some."

"Please," he said politely, and with a jerk of his head, Dan found himself moving automatically toward the kitchen with his partner trailing behind. Hot cocoa was one of his favorite things about winter. His first memories of it were from his childhood, when he would come in from the cold with his glasses all fogged up and his nose bright red, and his mother would smile and hand him a steaming mug so it could warm his fingers. He drank it now in part because he liked it, but mostly because it made him think of his mother, and it made him feel young again – sans all his responsibilities, as a superhero and as an adult.

Rorschach reached out and flicked the light on as they walked in, and Dan walked over to the cabinet with all his glasses. Picking out a mug at random, he looked over his shoulder as he reached for the cocoa powder container he'd left out from earlier. Rorschach – at home as usual – situated himself at the kitchen table, the book in hand, and thumbed through it quite without permission. Dan rolled his eyes and went back to the counter.

"What made you call it indecent?" he asked, spooning powder into the mug. It was one of his favorites, printed with multicolored owls, a gift from his family. Rorschach made a noise that could have been indignation, surprise, or a simple acknowledgement of the question. The cocoa powder swirled around as he poured hot water from the kettle, reminding him of the blots on his mask, but before long the leftover powder lumped together at the top and ruined the effect. As Dan stirred it with a spoon, the clinking echoed noisily around the kitchen until finally Rorschach grew tired of the racket and deigned to reply.

"The knight, and the queen," he said carefully. Dan turned around and leaned his back against the counter, lazily stirring as he listened. "They betrayed the king's trust. Women are weak, naturally, but both are guilty – especially the knight. Succumbed to lust. Deserves what torment he feels."

Dan could argue several points, having read the book enough times that he could have recited it, but instead, he smiled as he set both mug and spoon down on the kitchen table. Rorschach pulled it toward him and snorted at the tacky pattern. "You know the story of Lancelot and Guinevere?" Dan asked, reaching behind him and holding up the bag of marshmallows as a question. Rorschach leaned forward and took it from him as an answer.

"I know some," he said as he rolled up the bottom of his mask. Automatically, Dan studied what little of the face he could see: freckles here and there, thin lips, and the occasional surprise of a missing tooth. He knew it by heart already. "I know the queen was married. Had a husband. And yet she…" He gesticulated vaguely, which Dan had long-since learned to understand as anything referring to sex, romance, or anything else he felt uncomfortable discussing. "Indecent."

"She loved Lancelot," he argued half-heartedly.

"Had a husband," Rorschach repeated. Dan watched him pour dozens of mini-marshmallows into his mug until they formed a thick white mound sitting on top of the cocoa. He knew better than to reprimand him about how much sugar he had to be eating – he'd learned that lesson a long time ago.

"She loved him differently. That's the point of the story." Rorschach rolled his shoulders, immediately dropping the subject, and Dan sighed. They were done with that – if he didn't want to talk about it, they didn't talk about it. One of the cardinal rules. His mind wandering, he glanced toward the living room, remembering the mug he'd left out there. It was probably getting cold, and hot cocoa was never any good when it was cold…

As if Rorschach had read his thoughts, he stood up and stalked back down the hallway, the book tucked under his arm, his mug in one hand and the bag of marshmallows in the other. Turning off the light, Dan followed behind at a distance and leaned against the doorframe after his partner filed in. Rorschach examined the room briefly and seemed to weigh his options before he settled on the couch. He looked almost comical, the fedora tipped down over his forehead, his ankle sitting on one knee, the book on his lap and the mug never far from his lips. Somehow, he kept all those marshmallows in place, and Dan sort of wished he hadn't handed over the bag. He could go for one or two, but now he probably wouldn't even see the bag again.

Chuckling lightly, he moved around to hunker back down into his chair and replaced the blanket over his legs. At the sound of his laughter, Rorschach's head tilted up the slightest fraction, and he knew he wasn't imagining the slight lilt of sarcasm in his voice.

"Something funny, Daniel?"

"No, no," Dan said, retrieving his own hot cocoa. It was still warm, thank goodness – he took a sip. "Just thinking. It's really not a bad book, Rorschach. It's one of my favorites."

"I'm not surprised," he muttered, picking a marshmallow off the top of his pile. Dan didn't know what to make of that comment, so he ignored it. That was something else you got used to doing, after spending time with Rorschach – if he listened to everything his partner had to say, he'd probably go crazy before long. Hell, he didn't see how Rorschach stayed as sane as he had, with all that stuff floating around in his head.

"Yeah. I even named Archie after a character in that book." At that, Rorschach looked over at him, the rumpled inkblots moving slow around his eyes and cheekbones. He could sense the unasked question (_Really?_) and nodded in response. "Well, technically," he amended, "I named Archie after the owl from the Disney movie. _The Sword in the Stone_, you know? That was based off that book."

"Again," Rorschach said, a quirk of his lip betraying the beginning of a smile. "Unsurprising." Everything was silent again, for a few minutes, Rorschach busy with the book and Dan quietly sorting through his thoughts. With anyone else, a lasting stillness like this might have been awkward or off-putting, but it wasn't so with Rorschach. It never was.

"I wanted to be a knight," Dan said suddenly, setting his mug down on the end table. "When I was a kid, you know. I had dreams of living next to the White House, ready at a moment's notice to spring into action and ride off to save the day." He laughed at himself, smiling fondly at the memories of dressing up and parading around the backyard with a stick, pretending to go on quests. Once, he'd even taken one of their good wine glasses and buried it in the garden, a Holy Grail he could dig up later and present. His father had simply shook his head and left the glass on the counter, marveling at how it hadn't broken.

Rorschach flipped the book shut, not sharing in his amusement (but then, he never did laugh, did he?), and fixed him with so serious a stare he could feel it through the mask. "Aren't you a knight already?" he asked, perfectly free of inflection and inference. Dan sobered up at that and considered the question. Sure, he didn't ride on a horse, and he didn't wear armor or believe too much in medieval chivalry, but Rorschach had a point.

"I suppose," he conceded. He smoothed the blanket over his legs, playing with the little creases and folds in the fabric. "I guess you could look at it that way. Knights were more of a government thing, though – getting dressed up and going out there every night is decidedly not."

"No," his partner agreed, bending down to set his empty mug on the floor. "But the principle is the same. Saving people, Daniel. Every night. In a modern age, that is close as you're going to get."

"But, Rorschach," Dan said, reaching out across the room. "Doesn't that make you a knight, too?"

This time, Rorschach considered what Dan had said, stretching and passing the book back into his grasping fingers. He thought for what felt like a long while, his hands empty and curved upward in his lap, occasionally twitching. The gloves were dirty, to be sure, and stained with blood from noses broken long ago. His coat didn't look much better, covered in grime and probably smelling faintly of sewer, if he got close enough to smell it. It was a far cry from the flashing silver of armor, his fists a poor substitute for a sword or a lance, but the nobility he always imagined knights possessed in multitudes was there. You couldn't see it just by glancing at him, but it certainly was there, in the rigidity of his shoulders and spine, and in the undertones of his voice.

"Not a very good one," Rorschach finally said, lacing his fingers together as though self-conscious of his gloves.

"A great one," Dan defended, and Rorschach's mouth twisted into a half-grimace mixture of disapproval and assurance. "Why did you come here tonight?" he asked, suddenly very interested in the answer. After all, he could have spent an evening at home, or out with friends, or… no. That wasn't Rorschach. He didn't know for sure, but from what Dan had gathered, his partner's apartment wasn't exactly a nice place to be. On the other hand, he was _very_ sure that Rorschach had few, if any, friends, too reticent and demanding for anybody to willingly put up with him. The idea made him sad, a little, but it also made him guiltily pleased, because that meant he was the only person he had to depend on.

Of course, he didn't expect Rorschach to say anything like that. His pride wouldn't let him admit any weaknesses, big or small, so Dan wasn't surprised when he shifted a bit on the couch and said, "Got bored. Too quiet."

Dan left it at that, not wanting to push him any farther than he was comfortable. At Rorschach's request, he turned on the television just in time to catch the news, but since that seemed like a dangerous way to provoke Rorschach into heading out right now to beat up some criminals (and he was quite comfortable), he quickly changed the channels until he found that new show, "M*A*S*H." They sat in silence, neither of them really paying the show any attention, but even so, Dan couldn't get over the feeling of just how _nice_ this was – just spending time with someone. He hadn't had friends to invite over to his house in a long time anyway, but there was something different about hanging out with Rorschach. They didn't need to be constantly talking, or even really doing the same thing. What mattered was that they were there, in the same room, just sharing each other's company.

After a half hour or so, he'd gone back to his book, and Rorschach was rooting around his bookshelves. Dan sort of wanted to make a quip about how it was kind of boring here, too, so really it was a waste of time for him to have left his apartment… but he didn't. Out of the corner of his eye, he watched as Rorschach pulled out a book of poetry and cocked his head, his mask still rolled up past his nose and his lip between his teeth. Without a word, he turned the page and settled back into the novel, half of him wrapped up in the story and the other half firmly grounded in the real world. He didn't want to say anything that could jeopardize this strange, wonderful feeling of quiet friendship.

_They thought that they understood each other once more – but their doubt had been planted. Now, in their love, which was stronger, there were the seeds of hatred and fear and confusion growing at the same time: for love can exist with hatred, each preying on the other, and this is what gives it its greatest fury._

**AN: Ladies and gentlemen:**

**The End Is Nigh.**


	15. Closure

Closure

"_A bringing to an end; conclusion."_

Rorschach sits at Daniel's kitchen table, trying to feel welcome instead of constantly looking for a way out. He remembers many occasions when he sat here and felt like he was home, as if he belonged somewhere, but that all happened long ago, and he doesn't feel like that anymore. Instead, his muscles are tense, waiting for Daniel to spring an unseen trap, because he knows this meeting can't be for social purposes. Daniel had stared at his face long and hard, begging him with his eyes to come by so they could talk, and he had. It was the least he could do, he rationalizes, pulling at his scarf a bit so he has more room to breathe. After all, even though they haven't patrolled together in months, Nite Owl is still his partner. He can stand a quick conversation.

This feels anything but quick or easy, though. Daniel sits across from him, looking very serious and wearing his civilian clothes. His thick glasses are perched on the edge of his nose, so he looks over them with a face that makes Rorschach very uncomfortable. By now, he unwillingly knows all of Daniel's expressions simply by proxy, and he has only seen this one a handful of times. It means that his partner is searching for what to say, doesn't know how to put his thoughts into coherent sentences. Sometimes, it also means he's trying not to hurt Rorschach's feelings. This, of course, is ridiculous, because Rorschach doesn't have feelings to hurt – Daniel is still stuck in the days when Walter existed, and no matter what he does, he can't get him unstuck.

Daniel clicks his tongue and rolls his lips, biting them until the skin turns white. Putting off their inevitable conversation. Rorschach rolls his eyes in response, even though he can't see it, and clenches his fists inside his pockets. He wants to chide him, to demand that he speak and spit out whatever he's trying to say, but he won't do that to Daniel. Instead, he clears his throat and puts one hand on the table, thinking this gives off an appearance of confidence. "Why did you ask me here?" he enunciates, his voice creaking from disuse. That's six more syllables than he's said in a very long time.

Daniel runs a hand through his hair, leans forward, and puts his face into his palms for a second. Rorschach is very quickly running out of patience, but he settles back into the chair when his partner finally opens his mouth.

"God," he says as a start, his hands clasped as if in prayer in front of his mouth. "We've been working together for a long time, haven't we?"

He knows the exact amount of time (twelve years and four months), a habit left over that never really died with Walter, but he pushes it out of his mind and waits patiently. Daniel has more to say. He can tell by the way his hands continue to hover around his mouth, as though waiting to keep something he did not want to say from flying out.

"It's been great," he continues, "don't get me wrong. This is what I signed up for. Protecting the innocent, doing a job I thought needed to be done." The past tense has Rorschach's ears burning, and he sits up a little straighter, leaning forward. Daniel, in response, almost imperceptibly slouches backward and curls in on himself. "I thought this city needed me."

Rorschach glances at the calendar on the far side of the room, a gift from some kind of bird-of-the-month club featuring a screech owl. He knows perfectly well what day it is, and what day it was yesterday. He knows that yesterday, things might have changed for some people, but they haven't changed for him. Somewhere inside him, he had hoped that they hadn't changed for Daniel, either, but now he knows he was wrong. For a moment, he thinks it might be painful, but when Daniel finally gets to the point, he is pleased to realize that he feels absolutely nothing.

"I can't do this anymore, Rorschach."

_Nine months and ten days later, Rorschach sees Daniel for the first time since very early August 4__th__, 1977. He has become fat, looks defeated, and seems empty. Daniel tries to give him money, mistaking him for a homeless man, trying to be good in a world that sometimes demands the opposite. He knows Daniel wants to believe he's still making a difference, still affecting someone somehow, and even though he can't forgive him, he waits until he disappears before he leaves the money in the gutter. He lets him walk by, and marvels at the realization that they are still two men in disguise, one out of necessity and one out of fear._

"Need permission to do what is right?" Rorschach finds himself saying, unable to keep scathing disappointment out of his voice. Daniel winces – that was a low blow, and they both know it, but Rorschach can't make himself feel guilty.

"The people don't want us. They want the police."

No one has ever truly wanted Rorschach – they accepted him, because he came in a package with Nite Owl II, who was charming and handsome and represented good old American values. It never bothered him, still doesn't, so to hear Daniel make such a weak excuse puts a hot twist of indignation in his stomach. If it were about being wanted, he would have quit long ago.

"Giving up," he says, almost to himself.

"No," Daniel retorts, a little too quickly. "I'm not giving up. I'm retiring. There's a difference."

"Not where I'm standing."

They size each other up, Daniel undoubtedly searching for some other pointless words to throw between them, and Rorschach searches Daniel for what made him so feeble. They haven't seen each other in months, not since they had fought about what to do with the Twilight Lady, but that can't be enough time for someone to change so drastically.

Of course, Daniel would argue if he had the chance, Rorschach had changed overnight two years ago, immediately abandoning the personality he'd mistakenly considered his friend. That, however, was different.

"Look, Rorschach, we've been at this for over a decade. I'm tired. Have you ever been so tired, it's like you carry it around with you? It sits in my bones, weighs me down, and I feel old." Yes, actually, he has felt that tired before, because while Daniel was wasting his time at that college getting a degree he'd never use, he'd had a full day-job. He opens his mouth to say so, but Daniel runs a hand through his hair again, a nervous tic, and laughs a little forcefully. "Jesus, I feel old. And I'm only thirty-two. You can't be that much older."

Thirty-seven, Rorschach thinks automatically, and it surprises him, because he really is much younger than he remembers.

"I'm thirty-two, and I haven't had a girlfriend in years. Men my age have families by now. Careers. Shit, by the time my dad was thirty, he was practically in charge at his bank. He'd already made half his fortune. And what have I got?" Daniel scoffs, sounding much more cynical and jaded than he really is, and part of Rorschach cringes at the tone, because Daniel doesn't ever sound like that. The other part scoffs back – he hasn't earned the right to feel that way. "I dress up like a goddamn owl, fly around in a toy ship, and pretend I'm actually doing the world some good when I know I'm not!" he shouts, slamming a fist on the table. It startles Rorschach, and immediately his body responds with a fight-or-flight instinct that makes him want to punch Daniel between his eyes. Within a few seconds, though, his eyes soften, he regains control of himself, and he pushes his glasses up his nose. "None of us are."

"Wrong," Rorschach says. The atmosphere in the kitchen is practically suffocating him; he knows how this discussion will end, and yet he can't help but try to change it. He didn't want to see his partner for a very long time, left him alone and channeled his anger into the living punching bags crawling around their city, but he knew he was still there. He knew that if he came into the Nest at a certain time of night, Daniel would be there, tinkering or putting on his suit. The idea of no longer having that familiarity does not sit with him well, and he can't let him give up simply because the government tells him to. "Police are corrupt. Politicians are dirty. Everywhere, filth accumulates and pretends to work in the name of justice. Only true justice lies behind masks. Can't leave the people to drown."

"I can't carry that kind of responsibility anymore."

_Eight years, two months, and fifteen days later, Rorschach has been following Daniel for around a week. Even if no one else does, he truly believes that there is a mask killer stalking New York, and there is something deep inside his gut that won't let him leave his ex-partner alone for very long. Since he spoke with Daniel last Friday, the first time they had exchanged words in years, there has been an unpleasant feeling rolling around inside him where he's long believed all feelings are dead. He is beginning to truly remember long nights spent with his partner out on the streets, the time he lost his tooth, taking down Big Figure, falling asleep in the warm brownstone, the night he struck Daniel twice. He hates it, pushes it down as far as it will go, and watches as his ex-partner and Laurie Juspeczyk walk down the street together, close enough to touch._

Rorschach stands, knowing before Daniel does that their conversation is over. He stuffs his fists back into his pockets, curling them around empty sugar cube wrappers, and flexing them as if they were around a throat. Watching him, Daniel frowns as he adjusts his coat and scarf, pushing his hat down a little more firmly on his head. He tries to convey finality, in the way his body turns automatically to the door down into the basement, and the way he clears his throat, so that he won't have to say it out loud. After all, Rorschach may not have feelings, but Daniel does, and Rorschach is a little more sensitive than usually given credit for. Finally, when he's taken a few steps toward the stairs, Daniel gets it, and he hears wooden chair legs scrape across the linoleum as he jumps to his feet.

"Where are you going?"

"You quit," he growls. "We're done." Despite the anger in his voice, Rorschach is surprised to feel absolutely nothing. He's imagined a moment like this before, several times, and in each of his scenarios, he's assumed something might have hurt. In his mind, the Nite Owl II/Rorschach crime-fighting team had been totally intermingled, tangled up to the point that splitting them up would be just as painful as someone cutting off his left arm. This separation does not hurt – and that might be, he decides, because they have already been separated for a while.

"No, Rorschach," Daniel says, and a hand falls on his arm, grasping him just above the elbow. He turns to look back at him, passively examining the desperate glint in his eyes and the expression that says he has done something irrevocably wrong. "You don't have to go."

"Yes," he says, his tone even this time. Carefully, he removes the hand from his arm, purposefully not touching him more than necessary, and steps a bit closer to the basement.

"This doesn't mean –" His voice falters, and he swallows twice before he can speak again. "This doesn't mean we have to stop being friends. You're still welcome here. Couldn't we just –"

"We're done," Rorschach repeats, and leaving Daniel staring after him with a blank, hurt look, he walks down the stairs, past the suits locked up in glass cases, around Archie, and makes his way into the tunnel. His footsteps echo all around him, noisy as a thunderclap in his ears, and he still feels quite pleasantly empty. He knows Daniel thinks this is temporary – this wouldn't be the first time they'd separated on less than friendly terms – and they'll make up and become the sort of friends who go out to Sunday brunch with each other, sans disguises. He can't bring himself to believe that ending his tenure as Nite Owl II means ending his partnership with Rorschach, because he still thinks Walter is in there somewhere.

It's almost laughable.

And he still doesn't feel anything.

_Eight years and two days shy of three months later, it is so very cold. He used to think he had a niche in the world, created by depravity and filled by Rorschach, and all he'd needed was to know that he was cleaning up his city. Even after his arrest, he'd thought, for a few short, wonderful minutes, that he had fallen back into a place where he belonged. There was so much comfort in that handshake on the ship, something he used to take for granted, the first non-violent physical contact anybody'd made with him in ages. It felt natural, standing at Daniel's side and facing down an enemy, even if their enemy happened to be the smartest, fastest, and most depraved man on earth._

_ Now, he realizes it was the worst possible thing he could have done, letting himself become complacent. He had done his best to remain pure for so many years, and in the end, it hadn't mattered anyway. He failed. They all failed. He stands, stares at the screen, and feels tears sticking between his cheeks and the latex of his mask. As the others argue about whether or not to remain silent, he knows what he has to do, has already made up his mind, and with a few clipped words, he heads back out into the snow. Daniel argues with him, for a moment, and he finds himself hoping beyond hope that he will come with him so that they might tell the world what Veidt did. If he ever needed a friend, he needs one now, with the tears constantly flowing and a quiet identity crisis growing in the back of his mind, and he won't let himself wonder how exactly he's going to get back to New York with Archie frozen and no other means of transportation.  
_

_ But Daniel doesn't come. He is inside still, with Laurie, and Doctor Manhattan is staring him down, and all he can do is cry. He is crying for the people who have died, he is crying out of anger and frustration at his failure, and he is crying because he isn't Rorschach anymore. Something has happened over the past few days, and he is no longer that emotionless being embodied in black and white, but he can't be Walter, because Walter is long-since dead and buried. He is trapped by this, because if he isn't Rorschach and he isn't Walter then who is he, and in desperation he yanks off the mask and bares his face to Manhattan._

_ In his mind, he can see Daniel, stronger than he ever gave him credit for and weaker than anyone he'd ever met, a paradox blended into too many shades of grey to count, and he wishes he could say goodbye, but he is with Laurie. It is so very cold, and suddenly forty-five feels like enough, and he knows that this nameless, faceless being doesn't have any place in Veidt's new world, and he demands one thing from the all-powerful, impotent being in front of him, and suddenly it isn't so cold anymore._

Before Rorschach realizes it, he's back at his apartment, the sun is rising, and he sits down on his mattress. The emptiness lingers for another few moments, but after a time he replaces it with thoughts of how he'll find enough money for rent, and where he'll find food before he goes out to patrol. The day goes by quickly, and he only thinks of Daniel once, when it is time to put on his face again. After that, he doesn't think about him again, letting him fade to a dim memory in the back of his mind, something that isn't really there. A week goes by without a single thought even involving his ex-partner, then two weeks, and before long it's been three months, and as far as Rorschach is concerned, Daniel doesn't exist anymore.

One afternoon, he has a nightmare, the likes of which he hasn't had since he was a boy. It's a horrible dream, populated with the ghosts of small girls, fire, the smell of death, and Daniel, _Daniel_, and when he wakes up, he can't remember any of it, and he doesn't know why there are tears rolling down his face.

* * *

"Sometimes

words

are not

enough."

-Lemony Snicket

* * *

**AN: Thank you to everyone who's read, reviewed, favorited, or watched this story as I wound my way through it. Words is officially complete, and I can't say I'm happy to see it end, but I will not do anything more under it. This is the ending I've had planned from the very beginning, and I hope everyone has enjoyed reading as much as I have writing. Doing this has brought me a much greater understanding of myself, Watchmen, and especially Dan and Rorschach, so I hope to be able to use what I've learned later in a few other, less structured stories. Again, this story was far more successful than I ever dreamed it would be, and I thank all of you from the bottom of my heart.**

**~Grieverwings**


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